In June, the White House will host a UFC fighting event. They’ve already torn out the White House lawn, are building a giant fighting cage to hold all the lights and cameras, and will be placing the Octagon in the center.
It’s historic, don’t you know. Bulbous sweaty men kicking each other in the face is considered a dignified way to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States…and it’s not political, it just happens to be held on the president’s 80th birthday.
The president promises us it won’t cost the American taxpayer a thing (I’ve heard that somewhere before). It’s all paid for by special ticket prices — this is not a public event — and sponsorships from Paramount and a crypto company. I’ve never watched UFC, is it all scripted kayfabe bullshit? If so, that would be perfect.
Canadians, Europeans, everyone living in the civilized world outside our borders: are you laughing at us? Because I feel like hiding in shame for some reason.
I wonder of Trump is familiar with the anti-authoritarian message in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
No, the UFC is actual fighting, although questions came up last year of whether fighters and refs might be fixing fights to benefit gambling outcomes.
*sigh* You have no idea
(also crying)
“Canadians, Europeans, everyone living in the civilized world outside our borders: are you laughing at us?”
No, but I do look at you pityingly.
It might work better if candidates for the presidency had to pass through Thunderdome before the election.
.
There might be a lot of politicians wearing prostethic limbs… but that is a risk I am willing to take if cadet Bonespur would not bother us.
Next iteration: The president suggests pardons for murderers willing to fight each other with swords.
The country already has the revolting phenomenon of “bumfights”, this is just a further shift of norms.
@birgerjohansson even better would be to have a vote after the term to see if the elected candidate was faithful to his mandate. If they don’t get enough votes, they should end up in prison for fraud.
I like neither prisons not representative democracy, but if that’s what we’ve got…
Mostly, because instead than noting that we’re following in the US steps with enthusiasm, we’re busy feeling superior.
F. O. @ 7
I think Wales or Cornwall have made a law requiring truthfulness, with real consequences for liars.
One thing that’s interesting about Freedom 250(which might make some Canadians think of the heavily advertised Freedom 55 retirement program) is the number of foreign fighters involved. The main event includes Illia Topuria, a Georgian fighter who holds Spanish citizenship. The co-main event is Brazilian fighter Alex Pereira versus France’s Ciryl Gane. There’s even a Canadian fighting, Aiemann Zahabi. (His older brother Firas owns Tristar Gym in Montreal, one of the major MMA training camps). You’d think with Trump’s involvement Dana White would have made the lineup entirely Americans versus Americans. I wonder if we won’t see a giant Trump tantrum if not enough of the Americans fighting win.
“The president promises us it won’t cost the American taxpayer a thing”
Trump has always paid his way. The only time he didn’t pay was when he got Mexico to pay for his wall.
I know that wasn’t funny, but this is not funny anymore.
@7 F.O.
Honestly, kind of like a lot of things, including some basic competence tests for holding office, there are two massive problems – 1. Unless the people are also the ones voting on what the F that means, but sensible people are also involved with making sure that what the people are asking for is not stupid, any such standard will be inevitably gamed. And, 2. What happens when, X number of decades down the line, everything is mostly working, there are no serious problems to solve, but the standard is still being applied, such that you come right back around to, “But, I am a racist, and no one is doing anything for me! The law says you must do something for me!”, or, just as bad, if not maybe worse, the “problems” they are being asked to “solve” have dissolved into literally petty stupid shit, but the law still exists, so people can vote their politicians out because, for example, they have no real problems to solve, but the “people” want them to save their favorite TV show, but they failed to do it?
This is always the problem with open ended concepts of, “Gosh, I really wish we could legislate the ‘right thing’, and make everyone do it!” You either end up with a system, kind of like the current US government is functioning, which no longer gives a F about what people want, and cherry pick their “successes”, and who they are actually working for. I mean, how the F many people in the US really want the main topics of debate in state, or even local, legislations, outside of religious nuts, to be, “Should children be allowed to be married?”, or, “OMG, we can’t let women go topless!”, yet these are major important topics in some places, and your rules/law would literally put, in some places, one or both politicians that “failed” to support banning toplessness, and/or legal child molestation, via marriage, as, “They didn’t do it like we told them they should, so according to the law, they need to go to jail!” And, while extreme, this is a big f-ing problem with such a system – people are sometimes bloody stupid about what they think is “important”, and thus what such politicians need to be held accountable.
Remember, we may think we have a handle on what “should” be done, and why, and what makes sense, but a) we are still human, and there may be things for which we are just plain stupid about, and b) on many of those subjects the majority would not come even close to agreeing on what are the priorities, or what the outcome should be, or have the damn clue, even when wrong about something, that what they are demanding is actually a disaster.
This is the whole reason why no one has ever come up with a better system (in general). The ones that do it better actually have set more sensible standards, placed better limits on some things, etc., but no one has, or likely ever could, come up with a way to prevent scammers from convincing the public that, “Heh, you want this!”, seemingly delivering on it, because it seems like it might fix a problem, and finding themselves right back where we are now, 50 years later, as more and more scams get pulled, and the majority fail to realize its all been a scam. Case in point – ever single country that is doing democracy better than we are, but have still managed to import our right wing idiocy, via scams, back room trade deals, and manipulations (which worked so well in the US, they decided to export them to the rest of the world).
So, yeah, lets “do better”, definitely. Pass laws, and laws to protect those laws, that make a lot of this stupid shit less feasible in the future. But, we need to be real careful with open ended stuff that not just can be, but will be gamed by the very people we think it will somehow keep out, or let us get rid of easier. Because, frankly, it won’t do either by itself, and it could be used to undermine the whole mess again.