Do they have control over that? I assumed that was handled by feds

An official language is not a lingua franca. A lingua franca is a bridge language. It is –and can only be– the most common shared language between native tounges.

They could add Esperanto as the official language for government beuraceacy, road signs, laws, public schooling and anything else under the purview of the state. That doesn’t automatically expand the utility of the language beyond those use cases.

The population of the EU is ~450 million people. Let’s look at how that stacks up against language demographics today (combined first+second languages for 2025):

• English 1.5B
• Mandarin 1.2B
• Hindi 609M
• Spanish 558M [the biggest non-english European tounge]

If we take out the EU’s 44% English speakers and make everybody speak Spanish (who doesn’t already):

• English 1.3B
• Mandarin 1.2B
• Spanish 931M
• Hindi 609M

So putting aside the logistical and diplomatic difficulties, the math just doesn’t add up.

You can’t just declare a lingua franca 😂

Here is the thing about equality, everyone’s equal when they’re dead! — Gavroche Adam Smith

Their definition of violence is anything harming white people or their property

My phrasing was unclear, I meant the original “all time high” statement being a lie.

I think there’s two sides to that coin. One is complacency that everything will fix itself, but the other is the doomerism extreme. Things like:

this is what Americans want

X% of Americans support [atrocity]

there’s no political opposition

anything short of an armed insurrection is pointless [including records set by rallies, scale of protest movement, political engagement, etc…]

They might be true taken in one frame of reference, but being bombarded by them isn’t effective as a call to action. Seeing only the negative gives the impression that no change is possible and resistance is suppressed as much as complacency.

I’m agreeing with your concern and pointing out that the original comment does not support either of us

Do you want me to requote your whole comment? Or are you just opposed to the “pushing” phrasing?

The heart of what that comment says is that America approves of this coup, which is literally the opposite of what you’re pushing. There’s no need to lie about very clear polls showing negative public opinion.

I don’t think anyone here is under the illusion that negative polls alone will stop the dismantling of America but it shows that the sentiment is much broader than just our echo chamber.

Anecdotally, I’ve seen more vocal opposition than ever in traditionally neutral/conservative spaces (sports communities, the workplace, bars, etc…). The sentiment is there, people are worried, it just needs to be directed.

All time high? There’s 3+ marks on the chart higher and statistical error touches his midterm slump. Maybe “an all time high for this term” since approval ratings nearly always drop all the way through.

Its also worth the context that his terms hold the bottom two slots in initial approval rating, his disapproval rating is always higher than his approval, and he’s the only president to never reach 50% approval.

There are “methods” for preventing it but they shouldn’t be mentioned in polite company.

Hey, where are all those people saying citizens are untouchable? I have this vague recollection of dozens of comments saying this surely couldn’t happen. Am I still overreacting? Just want to be sure…

That money doesn’t come out of nowhere; the stock market isn’t a magical wealth machine. It works by incentivizing unsustainable private growth at public expense. It’s a grand experiment to see who gets left holding the bag when you line shareholders’ pockets for decades.

The results are in: after a century of trying, it’s not profitable to feed people who can’t pay or provide affordable healthcare or keep our shared commons livable. Public benefit is antithetical to shareholder interests.

We’ve cut the corners as far as they can go; dismantled every regulation; manufactured every last drop of demand. The only growth remaining is mining public user data and selling it to the highest bidder. If you exclude technology companies, the market has already been contracting for at least a decade.

You criticize older generations for expecting the line to keep going up forever and encourage everyone to do the same thing in the same breath.

You’re only making money by fucking someone else today or yourself tomorrow. If you want to own it, that’s fine. But don’t act like you’re Robin Hood for encouraging people to buy in to a broken system.

If you have enough money to significantly invest in the stock market you’re not experiencing food insecurity

In 2022 nearly 1/10 households with an adult aged 65+ were food insecure.

Speaking of grandma living with you, multigenrational households are more than twice as likely to experience food insecurity.

Is feeding those people wasting money? You’re fine with your grandparents being part of that population if something unexpected happened to you?

Just admit that your solution is “fuck you, i got mine”.

Why don’t those kids and grandkids invest their speculation money into something that tangibly helps grandma? Why go through the rigamarole of building a portfolio to maybe someday pay for a nursing home instead of funding a food bank or a mutual aid network?

The world is in this shitty situation because we’ve had decades of people taking opportunities to help themselves. I don’t think it’s a radical position to question what good a tiny bit of personal enrichment does.

Buying in is perpetuating the bubble. Maybe those younger generations should be itching for a livable planet and not a few extra shares of the orphan crushing machine.

Congress implicitly consents. There has been no push back from Congress on any of this, even stripping funding powers from Congress themselves.

He proved this train has no brakes, but we’re still accelerating. Just wait till his attacks on judges/the judicial branch really ramp up…

Even better than that, the Fed can nullify your passport at any time