Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

@SleepySteve
Texas isn’t all desert, you’re thinking of the El Paso area. It’s mostly swampy grassland, especially closer to Fort Worth and Dallas.

I do agree that Texas sucks, though…especially rural Texas.

My dad lived in El Paso for a time. Might explain why he’s a bit fluent in Spanish.

@ᎶㄖҜㄩ 乃ㄥ卂匚Ҝ
Over half of Texas is a desert wasteland, far far beyond El Paso.

@SleepySteve
One thing that isn’t an issue on the US side is lack of differentiation, at least. (A few topics aside.)

@SleepySteve
I said could. I never said would. But people in that state hate him. As seen in a football game with the Aggies. So overall he is losing the people. With him going to cancun is a terrible mark on his whole thing.

@The Smiling Pony
Visually,

“But that’s still a lot of green in the ‘desert’ area!”

Maybe from a satellite picture taken in March. Zoom in and see what it’s really like; very well spaced mesquite trees, cacti, brambles, and brush.

But also yes, practically all the non-city areas are shit. “Rural” is being generous, most counties have like 1-3k people tops and 70% of them vote full-ticket red, because that’s the Texas way.

Dallas, Austin and Houston are really the only places in Texas I’d bother visiting.

This one took me a while to process since school shootings are so commonplace it’s just white noise now, but didn’t school just start?

@Dustcan
Most schools normally open up again around the end of August/Start of September, yeah

Also the fact that a school shooting is “white noise” now is just very fucking depressing

@The Smiling Pony
Now that you mention it, it was more desert-y than my then 10-year-old self remembers (I lived on Eastland County, a shithole about 2 hours west of Fort Worth, for 3 months during one of my parents’ separation.)

@SleepySteve
Closest I’ve been to Dallas is Arlington. That’s where Six Flags is.

@Background Pony #1F81
Yep. We’re #1. Yay.

@Dustcan
Yes the kid gave himself to police after killing 4 people. True, I’m sick of the gun violence in my country though.

@igotnopicks
Was the kid white?

@SleepySteve
San Angelo and College Station are pretty nice tbh.

Maybe we shouldn’t send kids to what is essentially a prison for 6-8 hours a day for 9-10 months a year. It’s not like they learn much worthwhile during their 13-year sentences.

@Meanlucario
The kid is 14, named Colt Gray. That’s all I know. I don’t know what skin color he has. Or hair color. Or anything else.

@ᎶㄖҜㄩ 乃ㄥ卂匚Ҝ
With how much you hate school, I think you got bad grades and are blaming the school for you not even trying to do your homework or studying.

@Meanlucario
I flunked a few classes, yes, but that’s no big deal. I still got enough credits to graduate. So what?

Grades only measure how well you memorize and regurgitate the “information” (being generous here) your fat ugly overweight underpaid teacher gave you.

Homework is just slave labor unpaid clerical work.

School lunch is slop. Not much better than the stuff at McDonald’s.

@ᎶㄖҜㄩ 乃ㄥ卂匚Ҝ
You say that, but the stick you have tells me it’s much more personal than you want to admit.

The American educational system is flawed yes and in need of reform. But pending a better alternative it’s still preferable to have an educated populous than an uneducated one.

@Meanlucario
Of course it’s personal! I didn’t learn the true purpose of school until almost a decade after I got my diploma. Ancient Prussia invented the modern “education” system to train Polish kids (IIRC) to be loyal to their conquerors. (They eventually became the Weimar Republic and then Nazi Germany.) When America first adopted the system, they wanted nothing more than obedient factory workers who were only smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, but just dumb enough to passively accept the fact that they’re being taken advantage of. America still uses this system today, even though there are much fewer factory jobs then there were about 150 years ago.

Considering that Canada is more highly educated than America and they’re about to hand the keys to the government to an increasingly right-wing Conservative Party (who is now only slightly to the left of the GOP) potentially in months barring a dramatic polling error or reversal, I’m not sure having a more educated American populace is gonna help democracy much anymore.

@ᎶㄖҜㄩ 乃ㄥ卂匚Ҝ
You forgot the part where keeping kids in school during most of the day lets the parents go out and work for their taskmasters to please the capital owners :D

@The Smiling Pony
That’s the only real benefit for parents. Free daycare.

@Dustcan
This is true. This is coming from someone that passed high school with mostly Ds in English, in High School.