As far as I can tell, there is nothing in chiropractic practice that is not quackery.

Think about it this way: the basic practice is the idea that you have misalignments causing problems, and that you can manually manipulate the body back into alignment. But then what keeps you from getting unaligned again as soon as you stand up? (Nothing, of course! That’s why you have to keep going back!) Take, for example, the common inguinal hernia. You can manually manipulate it so that you’re forcing the intestines back through the abdominal wall. And it absolutely relieves the immediate discomfort. But you’re not actually fixing anything; you need surgery to stitch the tear up. If you have weak support structures causing a problem, then physical therapy is going to create a permanent solution. If you have a herniated disc that’s not healing and causing referred pain, then you need to surgically fix the herniation.

I opt for bitcoin because it has more utility value for me.

My bank makes it an enormous pain in my ass to buy things from overseas vendors; they won’t process any payments that are going outside of the US border. The rationale is ‘fraud’, even when you’re dealing with well-known and trusted vendors. Even when I try calling my banks and telling them to pre-authorize the charges, they won’t go through. The only way I can get around that within the established financial system is by using a 3rd party payment service; those 3rd party services make their money by lopping off a percentage of that purchase. E.g., if I’m buying something for $1000 from China (and we’re going to ignore tariffs, duties, taxes, and shipping costs for the moment), then I may have to pay $1040 for it, because of the fees that are taken out. On the other hand, if I’m buying from a trusted vendor, and I use bitcoin, I can just send it to them. Bitcoin doesn’t care where it’s going, and–assuming you don’t care about speed of confirmations–transaction fees can be quite a bit lower than using any other payment system. (And, BTW, transaction fees are built into all payment processing systems; it’s just not apparent to individuals on the purchasing end. That means that if something costs .001btc, then I have to send, say, .0010001btc to the vendor, but then the)

Speculation doesn’t play a role in it for me.

I have no direct use for gold; I can’t plate connectors.

Yes.

But many people–and I’m not saying you do this–but many people get gold, silver, and diamonds confused, and think that their intrinsic value is linked to their perceived value. does that make sense?

…Except that gold, like the dollar, and like bitcoin, has the value it does because people believe it does. Sure, gold’s a great semiconductor. But if that was all we used it for, the price of gold would be a tine fraction of what it is. Diamonds are great as abrasives and in certain cutting applications, but that’s all synthetic now. Natural diamonds only have high value because of artificial scarcity and advertising.

Remove the bag limit, put a bounty on them. Anyone that murks a billionaire wins a 2000 ft^2 home (or condo, whatever) in the location of their choice, with all taxes, fees, and utilities paid for as long as they live there.

I’ve read history books that aren’t full-blown propaganda. If you had read any, you would know that oppression and violence is the foundation of ALL western countries, and most non-western ones as well. The difference being that countries in the EU are more comfortable forgetting that their wealth was built on things like the exploitation of the Congo, the British East India Company, et al.

The founding document of the US though, which is what I was clearly referring to, established certain civil rights that the gov’t isn’t supposed to infringe. Religious liberty is one of those. This is notably not a right in most non-US countries; many EU countries have state-funded religions, and citizens are often taxes by the gov’ts to pay for those religions.

I’m an atheist and a Satanist. I agree that these people are, by the measure of what the Jesus Christ of the Christian Bible is claimed to have said, hypocrites. At best. And yes, Jesus said that you should pray in private, and that people who pray in public so that they can be seen to pray have already received their reward. (Matthew 6:5 - “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”)

But it’s still a foundational civil right.

Yeah, no. That was never the intent of 1A. Individuals, or groups, are more than welcome to pray in government buildings, as long as they aren’t forcing that religious expression on unwilling people, using it as a religious test, or something similar that would amount to the establishment of a state-sponsored religion.

Students can pray in schools; teachers can pray in schools. Teachers can not compel students to participate in prayers, nor are teachers supposed to lead students in prayer (as that’s implied compulsion).

Constitutional freedoms–including religion–are a foundation for our country. If that’s not what you want, feel free to repeal the constitution, or move to a country that has a state religion instead.

Uh. This is absolutely a constitutional freedom. Would y’all be incensed if it was a Muslim congressperson (say, Rashida Tlaib) that was praying? Yeah, they’re hypocrites, but get angry about the hypocrisy and the Christian nationalism, not the expressions of religion.

I named a black cat Svartur. I also had a cat named Potet. (“Black” and “Potato” respectively.)

I had a cat that my partner nicknamed pants. He answered to it.