What grinds my gears

One of the core pillars of a free democratic country is freedom of speech. The level of freedom and democracy of a country can often be at least partially measured by how it deals with free speech of its citizens. One very particular aspect of this is how such a country deals with criticism against the government itself, against those in power, including the politicians, parliamentary representatives, ministers, law enforcement, and so on. It is a well established principle of democracy that the government, and the people in it, are particularly free to be criticized, even more so than regular citizens who are not in power. In other words, politicians who are in power are in a certain way even less protected against harsh words than regular citizens (in other words, what constitutes illegal defamation has a significantly higher threshold for politicians in the government than it does for regular citizens.) It is very typical of totalitarian regimes that criticism of the government is

The answer is quite simple: Because you control your own speech, nobody else. You should not allow other people, especially complete strangers, to control your speech, to dictate what words can and cannot come out of your mouth. The main reason why the modern far left is so keen on "preferred pronouns" and forcing people to use them is because it's a form of control: It gives people power to control other people's behavior, and to force people to conform, and punish those who refuse to conform, instilling a culture of fear and submission. At its core, it's a way to restrict your freedoms, to control you. You decide what words come out of your mouth, not somebody else. Do not let anybody bully you into allowing your speech to be controlled. If someone is clearly a man, just refer to him as "he". If someone is clearly a woman, refer to her as "she". If you are unsure, especially if it's clear that that person has deliberately modified his o

Earlier this year I predicted that if Trump wins the presidential election, the Democratic Party and, especially, the Biden administration would fight it to the end, perhaps even going so far as to outright refuse to leave office, maybe even declaring martial law and occupying Washington with state troopers. Render me genuinely surprised when not only did they publicly announce that they would transition the office smoothly to Trump, but in fact recently Biden met Trump at the White House and shook his hand and talked about this smooth and peaceful transferral. Not even a sign of animosity, hostility, wariness, criticism or reluctance. Of course the actual transfer of office will happen in January, so there's still plenty of time for them to do something completely stupid (and a small part of me wants to think that this might just be some kind of ruse). However, at least at this moment render me genuinely surprised, and giving credit where credit is due.

For some reason that I don't really understand (I haven't researched the history of this), the Nordic Countries in particular, or rather, their governments, seem to have a particularly deep hatred of cannabis, over all drugs. In most if not all Nordic Countries you can get a longer jail sentence for growing cannabis for your personal use than selling hard drugs (like heroin, cocaine or meth) to people. In fact, you can get a longer jail sentence than purposefully killing someone. You think I'm exaggerating or kidding, or that this is just some kind of metaphor? Nope, it's literally true. In several if not all of the Nordic countries the judicial system routinely gives shorter jail sentences for manslaughter, even murder, than for growing cannabis for your own personal use. And much, much longer than eg. selling heroin on the streets. In some of the countries the medical use of cannabis is recognized, but it's extremely restricted and regulated. Note that "medi

When the controversial video game Dragon Age: Veilguard was published, several professional video game reviewers, publishing their reviews for big-name video game publications, gave the game a 9 out of 10, several even a 10 out of 10. Giving a video game full points, a 10 out of 10, is claiming that it's one of the best and highest-quality video games that has ever been made. A complete masterpiece that will be remembered for decades to come. A game that can be proudly listed on "best games of all time" lists for the foreseeable future, among all the other video games widely considered the greatest of all time. Video games that sold tens of millions of copies and shaped the industry and left their mark in gaming history. A video game that even 20 or 30 years from now people will be playing and talking about, and widely praised and fondly remembered. It's extremely obvious that this is complete bollocks. Even if you completely ignore the artificial shoved-in modern-da

Eight years ago, when Donald Trump was elected the President of the United States for the first time, I made a prediction: If he got to the end of the presidency and none of the insane predictions by the far left came true, the American far-leftists would argue that it was their activism, their protests and their riots that stopped him from doing those things (thus justifying said protests and riots). Their predictions were indeed quite insane. They predicted that if he gets elected, then the United States would essentially become Nazi Germany v.2.0, with stormtroopers, neonazis and hooded members of the KKK marching the streets taking minorities into concentration camps (if not outright just shooting or hanging them right there). They predicted these stormtroopers and federal police kicking people's doors open to take them into prison and concentration camps. They predicted mass deportations. They predicted the removal of all kinds of human rights, the annulment of the Constitutio

The American left has for many years now claimed that there's a "cult of personality" around Donald Trump, among his voters and followers. Someone pointed out a rather astute and telling observation about this. At many recent political rallies by Kamala Harris, when you listen to what the crowd is chanting, it's "Kamala, Kamala, Kamala!" What does the crowd typically chant at Donald Trump rallies? Do they chant "Trump"? No, they chant "U.S.A, U.S,A, U.S.A!" So, which one has a cult of personality again? (It's also quite telling what these people at the opposite ends of the divide consider most important: The candidate, or the country?)