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So like, “Biden should seize the powers of the presidency to take a more authoritarian stance against authoritarianism.” Is this really what you mean?

finger wagging is for the powerless citizenry not the president

Contrary to your premise, Biden has consistently promoted an anti-authoritarian view of how our representative democracy should work. He thinks people should vote against authoritarianism, instead of them calling on a POTUS who was elected to office because of his anti-authoritarian views to start taking authoritarian action against his authoritarian opponents.

The citizenry is not powerless. The citizenry has the most fundamental power of all: power over who is elected to office.

Just because that power can be corrupted and diminished through gerrymandering, electoral college imbalances, and two-party FPTP distortions (and a million other for-better-or-worse Constitutional safeguards against mob-rule) does not change the fact the citizenry still holds the most basic and fundamental power of all.

Tweets and finger-wagging are fine too, if you like, but if you are against fascism, I’m glad too. I hope you vote, and I hope you vote strategically instead of out of anger.

It’s not just for quality, but for authenticity too, I think.

Foods that are fermented or aged can take on a unique flavor profile, based on the unique blend of bacteria and mold and yeast in the area. Even using the same milk from the same cows and processing it the same way, cheese that is naturally aged in a cave in France might taste different from cheese that’s aged in a cave in West Virginia. Not necessarily better or worse, quality-wise, but different. Not authentic.

Weather patterns, seasonal changes, and soil conditions are also distinct and varied in different places. The same grapes grow differently in German soil than they do in Kansas. The grass that the cows eat grows differently in different places, and this can have a significant impact on the flavors of the milk and cheese.

I’m American, but I used to work in a fancy wine store that sold a lot of imported cheese and groceries. I imagine that in practice, PDO must seem like an annoying mix of over-regulation and jingoistic propaganda – especially to someone in Europe. But it does seem to serve a purpose, even if in an overbearing way.

I think being proud of local food culture is more like community spirit or neighborhood pride. It’s like saying, “here’s something ingeniously delicious we created using only our limited local resources.” I don’t think of that quite the same way as “pride” about race, gender, sexuality.

Yet you still don’t seem to understand why a serious person might hesitate to take you seriously?

I know that the “United States of America” is the only country with the word “America” in its name. I know that the “United Mexican States” also has the words “united” and states" in its name – are Mexicans “USians” too?

I know that most Mexicans, by default, refer to people from the United States as “Americanos.” I know that most Canadians are quite happy not to be confused with the “Americans” from south of their border.

I know that people from the United States of America have been referred to as “Americans” for over 200 years. I know that when someone makes it a point to start calling someone else by a different name than the one that’s preferred, that person is usually pushing some outside agenda and should not be taken seriously in the conversation at-hand.

TL;DR: What does any of this have to do with your point about Israel and Gaza?

USians

Just as I was starting to take you seriously,

Hall --> Powell --> Cheesebro --> Ellis --> (?)

Flippity floppity. Who will be next?

What does that mean though, “anti-war party,” “anti-war politician”?

Did your “anti-war party” stop being so because they’d ended the war we were in? And if so, wasn’t that a good thing, for those with an “anti-war” outlook?

Back in the late 1930s, I’m pretty sure America’s “anti-war party” was mostly isolationists and some Nazi sympathizers. It was FDR, one of the most progressive Democrats ever elected to the office, who led the country to war back then.

If your entire political belief system is based on avoiding war at all costs, you deny yourself any real-world context in exchange for that purist ideology.

Those who are anti-war above all else lose everything they have and everything they stand for, the first time someone (anyone!) else decides to threaten them with war. The first time that someone sneak-attacks their Pearl Harbor, or crashes planes into their Twin Towers, or whatever else.

Maybe war is like abortion (in this singularly metaphorical political sense). Nobody ever really wants it to happen, and most people do their best to try to avoid it for themselves and others. Yet sometimes, despite everyone’s best efforts, it ends up being the safest and healthiest way, sometimes the only way, out of an untenable situation not completely of our own making.

I’m not arguing that World War II was a “good” war and that W. Bush’s Iraq was a “bad” war. That may comport with my personal beliefs, but my real point is that everyone has their own personal beliefs. Everyone has something that is most important to them.

If you say that war is never justified for any reason, then you are also saying that your call for pacifism is more important than whatever the reason for the war may be. Not just more important for you, but for everyone else too.

We have plenty of monuments and remembrances for military personnel who have given their lives for their country. We celebrate our veterans, at least as well as we take care of them.

We don’t have the same opportunities to celebrate, or monumentalize, or even just remember the people in the intelligence community who given their lives for their country. One of the few places we do have for that sort of thing is the CIA’s Memorial Wall. Like all monuments to fallen patriots, it is intended to be a place of quiet reverence and reflection.

On the night of his 2017 inauguration, Trump and his wife stopped by to do a little dance and give a little speech, in which he bragged about himself and insulted the media and his political rivals. It doesn’t sound like much now, after all we’ve been through, but back then it was still shocking.

It was shocking that anyone would act with such disrespect in that place. Moreover, it was profoundly disheartening that the person who was acting with such disrespect would be the same person who was now in charge of all the precious national intelligence that those fallen heroes had given their lives to obtain. Those fallen heroes with their stars hanging on the walls behind Trump, as blathered to the cameras on with one of his rehashed schticks about how smart he is.

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Ex-CIA Boss Brennan, Others Rip Trump Speech in Front of Memorial [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ex-cia-boss-brennan-others-rip-trump-speech-front-memorial-n710366]

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At CIA headquarters, Trump boasts about himself, denies feud [https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-cia-langley-233971]

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I remember this speech now, reading this article about Steele, because it sounds like Trump got at least two more people killed for the sake of his pathetic narcissism.

By declassifying the Steele report, for no reason except spite, Trump endangered the lives of every agent and every source even tangentially involved with its creation, across the globe. Two more sources in Russia suddenly disappear thanks to Trump, no suprise. And what else disappears? All of those networks of information, which cost thousands of hours of expert work and millions of dollars of taxpayer money to develop.

When we invest in an intelligence project, the information networks we develop are where we put all our money and resources. Those networks are the “principal.” The intelligence we gain from the networks is just the “dividend.”

Yet Trump is anxious to spend the principle, even if only as a gift to a foreign leader he’s trying to impress. As if any of it – principle or dividend – was ever his to spend. (Or to store in an extra bathroom at his house in Florida.)