The new term is “digital audio player”. http://www.reddit.com/r/digitalaudioplayer is a good community for that. mp3s are out, if you want a really small file size, opus has better quality. If quality is more important than file size, rip to FLAC. I know at least for android, there are music player apps like musicolet and poweramp that will allow you to play songs from your phone if you have the storage space. The old ones work with modern computers. You can buy reconditioned ipods on ebay, but the new ones are better IMO. For ripping music a good community is http://www.reddit.com/r/musichoarder

I was doing that anyway in my early 20s. Now I’ll do it for $50,000.

Generally it’s the belief that America’s police, military, state department, and politicians of one’s political party, represent the country, and that they deserve preference over all other countries. Further, it usually involves upholding a belief that there is a national identity that supports the dominant language, culture, historical narrative, etc. The word for this type of belief, generalized to any country, is Nationalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism

There’s also the belief that America is unique in that it has the best government, that it is a positive influence on the rest of the world, and that international laws do not apply to the USA, this is a subset of nationalism called American Exceptionalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

Here are some things these people believe:

• The US military is a heroic force that spreads freedom and peace to the world.
• The US was the dominant factor in winning World War II
• The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was necessary and caused the Japanese surrender.
• The US was trying to help the people of Vietnam from their communist revolution and was militarily winning the war until they withdrew forces. The bombing of Laos and Cambodia is not mentioned.
• The US has been a beneficial and protective presence in South Korea.
• Israel is a benevolent ally that spreads peace and democracy in the Middle East.
• Immigrants, especially Mexicans, refugees, and Muslims, are a threat to American culture and prosperity.
• Everyone in the country and world should speak English.
• The US constitution created by the “Founding Fathers” in the 1700s is a perfect document.
• US Americans enjoy more freedom and democracy than any other country.
• Cuba, China, and North Korea are repressive authoritarian dictatorships and it is right for the USA to try to free those people from their governments.
• The USA was justified in destroying the government of Libya.
• The USA was justified in invading Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Panama, Cuba, Russia, Grenada, Somalia, etc.
• The USA was justified in joining NATO in the bombing and overthrow of Yugoslavia.
• UN is bad. They try to stop the USA from fighting just wars and they want to take over US sovereignty and take your guns.
• NATO is good. They spread freedom. Or they’re bad because they’re globalists.
• There is no mention of supporting genocide in Indonesia, white terror in South Korea, biological warfare in South Korea, etc.
• The people and government of China and Russia are bad and everything they do is bad and supporting them is morally and factually wrong in any context.
• Communism is a political system where political power is concentrated into the hands of a privileged few, people are propagandized to believe that they are free and happy and that their government is beneficial, when in fact they are subjects to a harsh and repressive totalitarian regime that must be overthrown and require America’s help to overthrow it.
• Capitalism is a political system that is non-coercive and liberates and benefits everyone who participates in it.
• The United States is the only country with true freedom of speech.
• Communists are criminals and should not be allowed to have a platform.
• Socialism is destroying Europe and the US health care system is the best in the world.
• Refugees are destroying Europe and raping everyone.
• The police in the US are heroes and people who protest them are misguided and trying to destroy our country and are not true Americans.
• Crime is a problem that is solved by increasing the number and power of police, as well as more gun ownership.
• Terrorism is a problem that is solved by increasing the funding and power of the military.
• The motto of the US Army Special Forces is “De opresso liber”, “To free the opressed” and nationalists believe that is what they do.
• There is no reason to visit other countries, because everyone knows they’re shitholes.

If you want to know where these ideas come from, I suggest “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, “Inventing Reality” by Michael Parenti and “Manufacturing Consent” by Noam Chomsky.

We’re kind of like clones for the most part. Maybe we’re distantly related. We agree on politics, religion, sense of humor. She likes TV and drinking more than I do, and she can’t stand some of my music, but we manage. We alternate days where one of us gets to do what we want.

Atheist. Raised catholic. Too old, I realized that the god of the bible isn’t a moral person. 1 Samuel 15:3 etc. Arguing with young-earth creationists gave me the final push, I understood science well enough to understand the implications of radiometric dating, plate tectonics, geology etc.

Iron Sky