The Meme Policeman

To Protect & Serve Against False & Misleading Memes

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

This meme tacitly admits CRT in schools would misinform students about the history of racial discrimination. It lays the blame on banks without mentioning that it rested squarely on the Federal government & progressive politicians in particular. Here is the real history 🧵

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

I usually like Amash but this is dumb. Citizens can’t go and out and arrest people, law enforcement is given that power. I can’t go out and conduct stings or traffic stops, so I would never be in that position. The standard for self defense is would a reasonable person fear for their life, not would a civilian be able to do what a law enforcement agent can.

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

Many people believe the legal threshold for self-defense is lower for government officers than for ordinary citizens. It’s not.

There’s one simple test for evaluating whether an officer’s use of force was unlawful or justified as self-defense.

Ask yourself: If you, an ordinary citizen, did the same thing the officer did, how would your actions be assessed?

If someone were obstructing a street in your neighborhood, and you demanded they move, and everyone were in the same physical positions and took the same actions, would you be justified in shooting the driver of the vehicle?

I can say, unequivocally, that if you did the same thing the ICE officer in Minneapolis did, you would be found guilty of a crime, and your claim of self-defense would be rejected outright.

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

So many of these right wing accounts are just whiners now, this is a diatribe about automatic sinks and towels, the horror! As I explained in a prior post, most of the newer terminals have great bathrooms, some now have completely private stalls and plenty of them. The worst and most crowded airport bathrooms are invariably found in aging terminals that are decades old. It’s a reminder that airports were usually drab and uncomfortable.

I think the heyday of the air hand-dryers was like 15-20 years ago, where often you couldn’t find real towels. Now you can at least usually get real paper towels in airport bathrooms. Remember those old cloth roller towels that would go in a loop and somehow “clean” themselves? Yuck! Public bathrooms have always been gross, it seems some are deliberately having selective memories.

Airport food and drinks were always expensive, but now practically everyone brings those huge cooler flasks with them and fills them up. So not sure what he means that you’re not trusted to drink your own water when people have never before brought so much of their own water on planes.

At the end of the diatribe he blames literally all of this supposed airport misery *directly* on mass immigration. Talk about a case of citation needed! It’s beyond ridiculous but these sorts of whiny posts are everywhere now.

[Sean Davis @seanmdav]

You know what’s great about modern American airports?

Not only are there never open stalls anymore (and I do mean never), you have to fight with a stupid robot sensor to get water to wash your hands, then fight with another one to get soap, and then with yet another one to get paper towels (if you’re even allowed to use them instead of the disgusting community drying machine). And that’s all after you get groped and interrogated by barely literate high school dropouts for the crime of randomly setting off yet another robot sensor mandated by another illiterate bureaucrat.

After all that, you then get the privilege of paying $6 for a bottle of water, because not only can you not be trusted to turn a faucet on and off, or pump soap, or use a paper towel, you also can’t be trusted to drink your own water.

A microcosm of everything wrong with this country can be found in the airport, and all of it can be traced directly to mass immigration. All of it. It’s maddening.

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

@contramordor @_finn_240 @VivekGRamaswamy Great, I’m not an ancient Englishman, I’m an American, who believes in individual rights, not collective “rights.” Like America was founded on.

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

@_finn_240 @contramordor @VivekGRamaswamy No one has a right to a country, that’s just nonsense you made up. Just like “Heritage American.”

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

@_finn_240 @contramordor @VivekGRamaswamy I have a right to my property, neither you nor my children do (unless I give them rights to it)

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

Meanwhile, Michelle Obama’s family roots on both sides go back hundreds of years in America and she was never proud of it until Barack was elected.

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

Nonsense.
“I love America passionately. It is the only country on earth where a human being can live a full, rational, and free life. It is the country of the Enlightenment, the country of reason, of individual rights, of freedom. I came here from Soviet Russia, where I saw the exact opposite of everything America stands for. That is why I love this country with a passionate, profound, personal love that is greater than any love of country I could have felt for any other place on earth.”
— Ayn Rand

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

Nonsense.
“I love America passionately. It is the only country on earth where a human being can live a full, rational, and free life. It is the country of the Enlightenment, the country of reason, of individual rights, of freedom. I came here from Soviet Russia, where I saw the exact opposite of everything America stands for. That is why I love this country with a passionate, profound, personal love that is greater than any love of country I could have felt for any other place on earth.”
— Ayn Rand

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

@SgtBoomstick @contramordor @VivekGRamaswamy According to C Jay you need hundreds of years, sorry not a real American, 180 is mid

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

@contramordor @VivekGRamaswamy Complete and utter nonsense, but I guess you can probably get a following and monetize this sort of bs

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

@contramordor @VivekGRamaswamy “Someone who has been here for hundreds years” who’s been here for hundreds of years?! Also, someone who’s fresh off the boat wouldn’t be a citizen so would not be an American by his definition

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.

▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.

▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper than the past, allowing most people the option of air travel instead of just the affluent.

▪️Technology has made it much easier to book and rebook flights. Often, you are automatically rebooked during delays or can rebook yourself on the app. You can see the status of your flight from home, track the inbound, check in online, etc. If you aren’t checking bags you don’t need to wait in line (except for security). You used to need an agent or call for everything.

▪️Safety has dramatically improved. In the 70’s there were ~6 fatal accidents/million departures. That improved to 0.23 in the 90s and just 0.04 by the 2020s. This despite a dramatic increase in global flights. It feels like there are more incidents now, but that’s because everything is captured on video and posted to social media.

▪️Airports and their amenities have improved. La Guardia used to feel cramped and like a third world shithole, now it’s quite nice and spacious. The new Portland airport is gorgeous. I was in the new Pittsburgh terminal recently, very nice, I’ve heard the new San Diego is a huge improvement, etc. Food at many terminals is much better than in the past. Austin and Nashville are excellent. Most offer plenty of variety and a mix of fast food chains and local eateries.

▪️It seems like there’s a competition to have the best airport bathrooms now. MSP set the bar awhile back, but recently I’ve seen Kansas City and Baltimore outdo them with totally private stalls, and many other airports are following suit. All of these improvements are gradual and not found everywhere, but are happening at most major airports. Most older terminals are cramped and gloomy, a reminder of the past.

▪️The main drawbacks to air travel are due to govt control. Security is probably the biggest gripe, because it’s controlled by the TSA. The air traffic control system is also extremely antiquated, resulting in many unnecessary delays. By all means, let’s try to improve these areas!

▪️There are exciting new aviation advancements happening like Boom, which has developed a “boomless” supersonic wing that could not only bring back supersonic travel, but have it over land. Both United and American have pre-orders. Trump has an EO that ended the decades old ban on supersonic flight, paving the way for this technology.

▪️I don’t see how there’s any convincing empirical evidence air travel is worse than 10 or 20 years ago, remember every one complained back then, too. Compared to the 90s it’s worse because of TSA, but better in almost every other way. Compared to the heyday in the 1960s the service is definitely worse, but air travel was only for the wealthy and was much more dangerous.

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

My relatives sent us these as Christmas presents in the late 80’s. And it wasn’t cheap! We still use the boxes to store Christmas ornaments in. Hard to explain to kids today (and millennials with amnesia) how much a luxury fruit was in the winter.

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.

▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.

▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere now.

▪️High protein/low sugar snacks are now everywhere and delicious. Protein powder used to be the main option, but was cumbersome to bring away from home and tasted meh. Or the old protein bars that tasted like cardboard. Now you have Core Power at every gas station, and countless protein bars that actually taste good with minimal sugar. Back in the 80s and 90s there was almost nothing.

▪️Items like Greek yogurt used to be obscure. Now there’s dozens of options, flavors, full/reduced/no fat, etc. at Target. Vegan isn’t my thing but you can get plant-based “meat” that actually tastes good and a wide variety of other options. Also oat milk and almond milk, those basically didn’t exist in the 80s and 90s.

▪️The variety of fast food restaurants is unbelievable now. I remember in the mid 2000s when a Chipotle opened near me and I was ecstatic. Now, it doesn’t even move the needle. Any decent sized town offers practically every cuisine under the sun for takeout, and you can get it delivered if you wish. Delivery used to only be for pizza and other niche places.

▪️Specialty and artisanal products have exploded, now available in every grocery store. Used to be you had to seek out a bakery to get good or fancy bread. Or specialty shops to get special spices, hot sauces, cheeses and chocolate. Now it’s easy. Go to Total Wine and you have a huge selection of wine from almost every country.

▪️It’s easy to get pessimistic, but if anyone from the 1980s went to a Costco today they would be absolutely blown away by the abundance and quality of food. Someone from the 1950s would think today’s grocery store is a miracle. The average person can eat better than millionaires of just a few decades ago, but few appreciate it. Sad.

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

Yes, this was the era of writing off country club memberships, personal chefs and entourages, yachts, etc. Plus you could deduct losses more than $3k. Almost no one (literally almost no one) paid 90% or even 70% in taxes.

[Caleb Hammer @sircalebhammer]

People are incredibly disingenuous when they message this out into the world.

After deductions, exclusions, and the fact that most income sat in lower brackets, the top 1% actually paid an average effective federal tax rate of about 42% in the 1950s, versus roughly 36–37% today.

Is it less today? Yes. But not even close to what they are trying to market this.

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

A reminder that Snopes is ironically a great comedy account

[snopes.com @snopes]

No, a photo doesn't show Trump kneeling and unbuckling Clinton’s pants. Here's how we know: https://t.co/6DHb8u9h63

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

https://t.co/sCwuTbud9p

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

▪️This is a proposal that pertains only to graduate level nursing degrees, not undergraduate ones (which were never considered professional degrees). The proposal will have a 30-60 day public comment period next year, where groups can object, before the DoE will decide on it.

▪️This is about how much federal student loans someone can take out for a particular degree. The cap on graduate degrees is $100k ($20,500/yr), while a “professional degree” limit is $200k ($50k/yr).

▪️Under the new rule proposal, professional degrees include:
🔹Pharmacy
🔹Dentistry
🔹Veterinary medicine
🔹Chiropractic
🔹Law
🔹Medicine (including osteopathic medicine & podiatry)
🔹Optometry
🔹Theology

▪️The nursing degrees excluded are ones like master of science in nursing (MSN), doctor of nursing practice (DNP) and PhD in nursing. These degrees would be limited to $100k in federal student loans, like all other graduate degrees.

▪️These changes came from the One Big Beautiful Bill’s attempt to reduce the amount of student loans. It’s doubtful this is motivated simply by anti-woman bias, as other professional degrees like pharmacy & veterinary medicine are heavily dominated by women.

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

Plus, we all know they love & support food stamps. Which means, by this meme’s logic, they love to subsidize corporate profits. But they don’t really, they just think this works on low IQ people (or they are low IQ themselves).

[The Meme Policeman @PolicemanMeme]

▪️The left keeps using this meme but they don’t actually believe it. If you believe SNAP subsidizes companies to pay below a “living wage” this implies that if you take food stamps away they would suddenly pay a higher, “living” wage. So why not get rid of food stamps, then?!

▪️Except they know, and everyone knows, this isn’t true. Wages are set by supply and demand, not some mythical “living wage” metric. Absent food stamps there would actually be downward, not upward, pressure on wages, because the reality is food stamps subsidize the poor to not work as much as they might otherwise need to.

▪️Without SNAP, some low income people would need to work more hours to make ends meet, increasing the availability of low-skilled labor and lowering wages (all else being equal).