This meme is a fascinating look at how the modern left’s mind works.
▪️For years, it’s been known that the Matthew Shepard (not Shepherd) murder was over drugs, not a random anti-gay hate crime. Both of Shepard’s assailants were on a week long meth bender prior to the murder, Shepard himself was a meth addict and dealer, and reportedly had a sexual relationship with one of his attackers, who was bisexual.
▪️After his brutal murder, the assailants headed to Shepard’s house to finish the robbery, but got sidetracked and ended up brutally assaulted two other young men, which is where they were arrested.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/26/the-truth-behind-americas-most-famous-gay-hate-murder-matthew-shepard
https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=277685&page=1
▪️Yet the initial hate-crime narrative stuck in left-wing activist’s minds, and they never updated their priors, like in so many similar cases. They still think the Shepard murder was a result of some rednecks attacking a kid because he was gay, so this meme make sense in their minds.
▪️Even though Laramie isn’t a small, conservative town. It’s the 3rd largest city in Wyoming and the most liberal, the University of Wyoming is there. Which doesn’t exactly make it Berkeley, but it’s not your stereotypical small town.
▪️Additionally, Laramie residents were horrified at the murder and the assailants were immediately arrested and convicted of first degree murder. The defense even tried using the gay panic angle in hopes of finding sympathetic jurors (which helped fueled the false hate crime narrative) but it backfired. Later, one of the murderer’s girlfriends admitted it was false, she only said it because she thought it would help his case.
▪️So the “small town” of Laramie acted with swift justice against the murderers. This meme makes no sense on any account if you know the facts, but it does make sense in left wing activist’s heads because of the narratives they’ve constructed. It’s instructive to understand this.
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
▪️This is a proposal that pertains only to graduate level nursing degrees, not undergraduate ones (which were never considered professional degrees). The proposal will have a 30-60 day public comment period next year, where groups can object, before the DoE will decide on it.
▪️This is about how much federal student loans someone can take out for a particular degree. The cap on graduate degrees is $100k ($20,500/yr), while a “professional degree” limit is $200k ($50k/yr).
▪️Under the new rule proposal, professional degrees include:
🔹Pharmacy
🔹Dentistry
🔹Veterinary medicine
🔹Chiropractic
🔹Law
🔹Medicine (including osteopathic medicine & podiatry)
🔹Optometry
🔹Theology
▪️The nursing degrees excluded are ones like master of science in nursing (MSN), doctor of nursing practice (DNP) and PhD in nursing. These degrees would be limited to $100k in federal student loans, like all other graduate degrees.
▪️These changes came from the One Big Beautiful Bill’s...
