ApplesauceIrishCream
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User ID: 882
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
Yes, the moment an admin starts getting political it’s in trouble.
This point is underemphasized. The left--including the center-left--has by now "no enemies to the left" as a default setting. Once you combine that with "the personal is the political," the spiral to the left is inevitable, if on a variable timetable.
I used to run something more or less equivalent to a hobbyist group with the rules "no politics," "no racism," and "don't be an asshat." I know for a fact that the political leanings of the other leadership was everything from hard left to hard right, but we were able to stick to a firm "get your political discussion kicks elsewhere." I have zero faith that I'd be able to repeat the experience, because of the number of times I've heard "it's not political, it's just being a decent person."
As for slurs, it doesn't have to be a specific word or phrase. I've heard "white dude" be used with every bit of the venom and contempt that a Klansman might use the n-word. Didn't get moderated.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
A quarter of students signed a petition that an organic chemistry class was too hard, and the professor teaching it was fired.
Students do stupid things all the time, often en masse. And yet an ad hoc collection of students suddenly has the power to fire faculty? Where were the adu...oh, right. Once again, the person who affirmatively took the action described in the headline, who had the absolute ability to choose otherwise, skates past entirely unmentioned. "What shall I do in the face of a student petition?!" cried the dean. "My hands were tied!"
I have no idea whether the petition was "encouraged" by university staff, or whether it was truly...uh...organic. But the person responsible for the firing has a name, and allowing whoever that was to evade responsibility is counterproductive to reversing the rot in academia.
Failing to ask and answer one of the core questions of the story--"who made the central decision described in the headline?"--is incompetent journalism at best.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
The simplest and most accurate explanation is that "many of Trumps young online supporters and the alt-right in 2016-2018" weren't conservatives. Trump is first and foremost a populist who found the biggest issue that was unrepresented by the elites--systemic non-enforcement of immigration laws--and then broadened his base of support by promising to faithfully represent the interests of traditional conservatives as well (who also had reasons to dislike and distrust the R establishment).
In very general terms, most traditional conservatives are Republicans. The fit is far from perfect, and you can find exceptions near every boundary, but the overlap is substantial and central. You also have the loose group of "Republican-leaning independents" who 1) aren't Republicans, but 2) prefer Republicans to Democrats. Bits of this loose group can be found among centrists, libertarians, far-right fringes, etc.
There were people in 2016 whose top two choices were Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, in either order. From a left vs. right perspective, this makes no sense, but from a populist vs. establishment perspective, it captures rather neatly a broad, eclectic, extremely diverse "group" that felt unrepresented by the elites of both parties, and wanted a disruptive outsider who would shake things up. The populist sentiment won resoundingly in the Republican party primary--the top establishment candidate came in third--and lost in the Democratic party primary.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
The Rittenhouse case got many orders of magnitude more coverage and had an order of magnitude fewer victims.
Indeed--there was only one victim, and he didn't even die!
One fascinating aspect of the sovereign citizen "movement" is that, while it is certainly fringe, it's wildly all over place in terms of "nearest point of more mainstream thought." You get people that would otherwise be considered extreme libertarians, extreme leftists, extreme traditionalists, whatever, that have all decided to pick up this particular collection of unusual beliefs. One example is the Moorish sovereign citizens, if you prefer the black-separatist flavor.
ApplesauceIrishCream
11mo ago
I've been trying to get myself to do a writeup of Walter Russell Mead's four traditions of American foreign policy, because he was confronting exactly this question in the late 1990s--the various conflicts involving the breakup of Yugoslavia produced an anti-intervention movement on the Republican side of the Senate, which lost to the pro-intervention faction led by President Clinton. This also seemed, on first blush, to be a reversal of the left-coded anti-war movements in earlier decades.
In short, Mead proposes a two-axis framework, where each quadrant contains the interplay of the axes and also an intellectual pedigree particular to the US. One axis is the usual hawk/dove; the other is nationalist/internationalist. (Here, "internationalists" favor more widespread and ongoing engagement with other nations, while "nationalists" prefer to interact with other nations only when necessary, and reserve most of their attention to domestic affairs.)
Hamiltonians are the dovish internationalists, who have a particular interest in expansive trade and the promotion of American business interests abroad. They don't have strong opinions about how other countries run their own affairs, so long as Americans have robust access to foreign markets.
Jeffersonians are the dovish nationalists, whose central ideal is perfecting democracy at home and avoiding foreign entanglements that might distract or corrupt American national purpose. These are your classic anti-war isolationists.
Jacksonians are the hawkish nationalists, who mostly don't care to have extensive involvement with other nations, but react with vigorous force to assaults on American interests and especially American honor. Unlike the other traditions, Jacksonianism is predominantly a grassroots/populist tradition, not elite.
Finally, the Wilsonians are the hawkish internationalists, who want to promote democracy, human rights, and other American ideals abroad whenever possible. The neoconservatives of the late 70s are a central example, but so are President Clinton's interventions in the former Yugoslavia in the 90s.
At different points in history, these traditions have individually been more or less popular, and have allied with each other in varying combinations. I think the overall framework makes a fair amount of sense descriptively, and a few thoughts towards refinement/critique.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
Counterpoint #1--Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. Was it a 100% shot-for-shot take on the books? No, certainly not, but most of the liberties that Jackson took were adequately justified by the translation in medium. Arwen didn't rescue Frodo in Fellowship--that was supposed to be Glorfindel--but Arwen is much more central to later plot in ways that Glorfindel is not, so tightening the cast there made sense. It's well established in interviews with Jackson and everyone else involved that they tried hard to center Tolkien's vision and leave every other agenda out. The result is really, really good.
Counterpoint #2--The RoP marketing department pulled the same nerd-baiting shit Hollywood has done since Ghostbusters 2016--"the old, male/pale/stale fans are *ist and hate this take, don't be low status like them, give us money." Interviews with the showrunners and actors generate claims that Middle Earth should be "a reflection of the world we live in" in defense of woke casting, or that adding an original character who is the sister of Elendil "brings a feminine energy" to his line. The changes are strictly modern-agenda based, and add nothing in terms of storytelling efficiency or consistency.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
Weird Al is a master of parody (e.g. "Like a Surgeon," a parody of Madonna's "Like a Virgin"), but where he really shows off his talent is in his "non-parody" songs, because they fall into a related category: pastiche. Where a parody takes an original work and exchanges some of the words, keeping much of the structure but telling a different story, pastiche takes as its baseline another artist's style, and builds the rest of the variant work from the ground up. Done well, the pastiche sounds like a lost work of the original artist, but (often, in Weird Al's case) with a comic twist (e.g. "Mission Statement," an excellent send-up of Crosby, Stills, and Nash's body of work).
Parody is simple enough, assuming you're sufficiently clever with words, but pastiche--especially pastiche across many musical subgenres--is what marks out Weird Al as a generational musical talent. It doesn't hurt that he's much beloved by his fans as a genuinely sweet and humble person.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
Kyle Rittenhouse was the victim of repeated attempts to murder him. Two of the people who tried to kill him died as a result of his exemplary self-defense (and a third was wounded). Referring to his attackers as "victims" is a wee bit obscene, which is why I didn't assume that's what the OP meant. I may have tried for some cleverness in my phrasing, but I meant precisely what I said, exactly not figuratively.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
Biden's first day in the Oval Office, he's got a bunch of press with cameras and a huge stack of executive orders in those leather folders. Staff have been talking to everyone who will listen about how Biden's planning to reverse a bunch of Trump's executive decisions immediately--while the point was pushed a bit aggressively, this is par for the course when you get a change of administrations across parties.
At one point when Biden's working his way through the stack, he pauses and says, "What am I signing?" and an off-camera voice responds, "Just sign it." And so he does--the first of many instances in office where the strings were uncomfortably visible.
According to NBC, a few months ago:
Biden was furious that his remarks were being seen as unreliable, arguing that he speaks genuinely and reminding his staff that he’s the one who is president.
If they need the reminder, it sounds like this is an open question.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
I would say that's evidence, yes, but far from the best evidence. It's easily dwarfed by the absolute mountain of evidence uncovered by Prof. Sander at UCLA that the UCs were comprehensively violating Prop 209 since shortly after it was passed, and that evidence was covered up by UC Admissions while the UC Administrations told massive straight-face lies for the next decade or two.
One of the methods was using multi-pass evaluation of admissions packets where the first pass sorted into "admit/marginal/no admit." For some odd reason, when the second pass went through the "marginal" category, 75%+ of black applicants got an admissions offer, and approximately 0% of white and Asian students were accepted.
I knew some black students in the UCs that went there well after Prop 209, but before Prof. Sander's discoveries. They expressed bitterness that they were seen as affirmative-action students, despite Prop 209 clearly making racial preferences illegal. "Unjustified racism," they called it. And yet they'd been betrayed, and the suspicions of the "racists" were actually correct. They did get in under lower admission standards.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
How to Make a Semi-Fascist Party.
The Enemy.
a notable break for a movement that, in the pre-Trump days, had at least pretended to stand against “big government.”
Assumption of bad faith.
Christina Pushaw, whose official title is director of rapid response for the governor but whose role could be more accurately described as minister of propaganda,
Seriously? Pushaw is certainly a PR/press contact person for a politician, similar to the White House Press Secretary. I'd like an example of Chait evenhandedly referring to, say, Jen Psaki as Biden's "minister of propaganda."
Why yes, overwhelming bias sounds exactly on point. And given that obvious bias, an intelligent reader should not take his "summarizing and characterizing what was said at the conference" at face value, which undermines everything else in the article. These aren't "small points;" from the headline on down, it's his entire framing of the conference!
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
Chait's argument holds just as well for Chait, who makes no effort whatsoever at concealing his overwhelming bias. The people at the conference are The Enemy, and they must be Stopped At All Costs. He's nothing more than a Democrat operative with a byline, as they say.
The reason this is relevant is that every take he has is pre-loaded with hostile assumptions--the very opposite of charity--and it takes Kremlinology skills to dig through the bias to come up with any type of neutral reading of what was said. Only at that point can you evaluate whether anyone said anything useful.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
I think it's an insight most common among comedians that stifling constraints on the breadth of speech hits comedy first and hardest--after all, everyone's most sensitive when it's their own ox being gored. Jerry Seinfeld has been commenting for a few years now that you can't do comedy on college campuses any more. It's good to see that The Onion is showing a higher allegiance to the craft of comedy than their internal political inclinations, at least in this instance.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
But now they're submerged in Ukrainian immigrants. It's not the end of it either.
Not immigrants; refugees. There is a difference, and the Ukrainian new-arrivals to Poland are legitimately refugees.
The context is comprehensively different from Merkel's third-world invasion. From my reading, the biggest difference is that support for Ukrainian refugees is massively popular in Poland--not just right-to-left along a generic political axis, but importantly, top-to-bottom from the Polish elite to the grassroots.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
This is definitely not the first time I've heard the "Republican is the new gay" theory, and I'm sure it won't be the last, either. The analogy works well, and comes with a extra-large side of layered irony.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
Ok, now do "punch the Nazis" in a social context where it's clear that Republicans are basically Nazis. Or when the discussion is whether "punch the Nazis" is even an adequate response, since killing the vermin is obviously morally superior.
ApplesauceIrishCream
10mo ago
There was no "flip," is the point. There was a multi-decade trend across the South from one-party Democrat control to mostly one-party Republican control, but this trend happened at different rates in different states, and even more so, in different electoral contexts. Bill Clinton represented the last major effort at retaining the South in Presidential elections in 1992 and 1996 (and his running mate was even from a different Southern state!), and for all that--and Ross Perot's third-party candidacy--he only got about half the Southern states. In 2000, Al Gore did not win a single Southern state, not even his home state of Tennessee.
Let's take a look at the state governments:
Alabama's governor's mansion flipped from R to D to R to D to R in the 90s and early 2000s, and has only been solid R since 2003. Both houses of the Alabama state legislature were controlled by the Democrats from the end of Reconstruction until 2011 (!...also, this pattern will recur), and they have remained in Republican hands since then.
Arkansas' governor was a Democrat to start the 90s, then a Republican from 1997-2006, a Democrat until 2015, and a Republican since. Both houses of the state legislature were controlled by the Democrats until 2013 and Republicans thereafter.
Florida's governor was a Democrat (with a couple of Republican exceptions: one in the 60s and one in the 80s) until Jeb Bush took over for the Republicans in 1998, and except for some weirdness in 2010 with Crist, has remained Republican since. The state legislature was split in the mid 90s, with the Republicans taking over the Senate a couple years before adding the House in 1997.
Georgia's governor's mansion and state Senate flipped from solid Democrat to solid Republican in 2003, and the state House in 2005.
Kentucky and Louisiana still have not solidified as one-party Republican states--both have had repeated exchanges of power in the governor's mansion over the past three decades (and are currently controlled by Democrats). Kentucky's Senate went R in 2000, but the House did not go R until 2017. Lousiana's state legislature was solid D until 2011, and solid R since then.
Mississippi started the 90s with an R governor, succeeded by a Democrat in 2000, and back to R from 2004 to the present. Except for a brief exchange in 2007, the Democrats controlled the state Senate until 2011, and the House until 2012, while the Republicans have controlled both since then.
Missouri started the 90s with an R governor, went D in 1993, R in 2005, D in 2009, and back to R in 2017 until the present. The state Senate was solid D until 2001, and the state House similarly until 2003, and the Rs have maintained control of each since then.
North Carolina currently has a D governor, and the Republicans have only held the governor's mansion for a single term (2013-2017) since the early 90s. Aside from a short span in the late 90s (1995-1999) when the Rs held the state House, the Ds held both the state Senate and state House until 2011, and the Rs have controlled both since then.
South Carolina's first Republican governor since Reconstruction was elected in 1974. Since that time, both Rs and Ds have been governor, though the R's current winning streak goes back to 2002. The state House went R in 1995, and the state Senate in 2001, and have remained in R hands since.
Tennessee started the 90s with a D governor, switched R in 1995, back to D in 2003, and back to R in 2011. Except for an oddball period in 1996, Democrats held the state Senate until 2005, and Republicans since then (though there was split control in 2007-2008). The state House was solid D until 2010, and solid R since then.
Texas elected its first R governor since Reconstruction in 1978, and exchanged parties back and forth until George W. Bush was elected in 1995. In the past 28 years, Texas has had three governors--Bush, Perry, and Abbott--all Republicans. The state Senate went R in 1997, and the state House followed in 2003.
Virginia has had split control of the governor's mansion and both houses of the state legislature across the past three decades in various configurations. Currently, the governor and state House are R, and the state Senate is D, but if the state is going to solidify its political lean, that will happen in the future. The governor and state House were last D two years ago, and the state Senate was last R four years ago.
So while Republicans mostly control the state governments of the South today, in most cases that takeover happened in the last decade or two. A heavily recurring pattern--particularly in the houses of the state legislatures--is persistant control by Democrats lasting a century or more, followed by a switch to persistant Republican control at some single point within the last 30 years.
Paralleling this development is the regional decline in racism. The South of 50 years ago is not remotely like the South of today in terms of race relations. For example, multiple states in the South have elected racial-minority candidates in statewide races, though in general, those candidates have been Republicans.
ApplesauceIrishCream
4mo ago
Says me, on the basis of a vast amount of American political history, and the knowledge of what happened in Massachusetts in the 2000s. The usual process for filling a Senate vacancy is the appointment of a replacement by the Governor, and that appointment lasts until the next even-year November election. This is the well-known procedure in most states, both now and for the past several decades at a minimum. There are exceptions; they are unusual.
In 2004, Massachusetts had a Republican Governor (Mitt Romney, as it happens) and a Democrat supermajority in the state legislature (an odd combination, but not unheard of in Massachusetts). Anticipating the vacancy of John Kerry's Senate seat if he won election to the Presidency that year, the legislature amended the procedures for filling a Senate vacancy over Romney's veto, stripping him of his appointment power, and calling for a special election to fill the vacancy temporarily. As far as I'm aware, the legislature definitely had the power to do exactly that, but it was also an obvious political power play, and calling such "(legal) shenanigans" is defensible.
This power play did not pan out as expected. First, Kerry lost the Presidential election in 2004, so no Senate vacancy was had. Second, Romney was succeeded by a Democrat, Deval Patrick, in the 2006 gubernatorial election. Third, Ted Kennedy provided the next vacancy by dying in office in 2009. Shortly before his death, Kennedy persuaded the Massachusetts legislature to re-empower the Governor to appoint a temporary replacement pending the results of the special election. While Patrick could (and did) appoint a Democrat to replace Kennedy, the people of Massachusetts picked a Republican, Scott Brown, in the special election. Brown's election dropped the Democrats' Senate majority from 60 to 59, triggering the next round of drama in DC.
Had Massachusetts followed the "usual process" in filling the Kennedy vacancy, Patrick's nominee would have continued in office for several more months until the next general election in 2010, maintaining the Democrats' 60-vote Senate majority for that period. That this did not occur was the ironic result of political gamesmanship on the part of the Massachusetts state legislature.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
I can't claim to know what Biden believes, as I don't have access to his thoughts. However, his willingness to accuse Republicans of outrageous evil is not a recent development--see his remarks ten years ago to a black audience that Mitt Romney (!) wanted to "put y'all back in chains." This, from the man who said that his own state of Delaware was a "slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way."
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
This is something of a predictable failure mode of progressivism. The essence of Truth and Reconciliation programs isn't a complete dead-end; there are legitimate use cases. Unfortunately, those legal academics pointed to those particular cases and then proceeded to overapply the approach wildly, to disastrous effect.
In the wake of a horrific civil war, where atrocity has been piled on top of atrocity, and--crucially--the overwhelming majority of evidence is absent, there simply isn't much you can do to appease the demands of justice while picking up the pieces. Sure, some or even many of the survivors may have committed horrible acts, but what do you do if you can't prove it? Some may confess, others may not; how much weight can a simple accusation bear? Do you punish the minor evils that you can prove, and let the major evils pass unaddressed? This is a wicked problem.
The Truth and Reconciliation solution more or less acknowledges that achieving even a semblance of justice is impossible in these circumstances, and appeals to truth instead. In exchange for amnesty, the commissions should seek to gather and record as much evidence as can be found as an offering to history. This isn't a good solution, but in extraordinarily bad circumstances, it might be the best on offer. In less bad situations, it's just an excuse to avoid justice, because justice is hard.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
and 25.6% (341,800) reported they are gender nonconforming.
But...are they Catholic atheists or Protestant atheists?
ApplesauceIrishCream
3mo ago
A couple of months ago, @zeke5123 started a discussion about secession and the right to self-determination, and suggested that such a right was likely contingent, rather than absolute. In response, I wrote an analysis of the most famous writing on the topic of secession...and then posted it just after the following week's CW thread went live, which was very poor planning on my part. I hope the following is sufficiently interesting to justify a repost.
I've remarked before that I think the American Revolution should be more properly understood as an example of secession, not revolution. After all, the most famous document promulgating and defending the American position is the Declaration of Independence, and the choice of title is appropriate.
The part that comes before the famous "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." is the following:
"The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
This is a document about secession and self-determination. Next is the really famous bit (I'm adding numbers in brackets to highlight an internal list):
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, [1] that all men are created equal, [2] that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, [3] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
A clear statement of fundamental principles, but one key point later on is that Jefferson isn't claiming that these principles are a departure from English tradition, but that the Crown has been egregiously violating English tradition. The list doesn't end at three items:
"[4]--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, [5] --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
"Alter or abolish" covers many potential approaches, from reform to secession to complete revolution. Which approach is justified in which cases?
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
This, I think, is the start of the answer to your question--the right of self-determination in terms of fully reforming/seceding/revolting must reach a threshold of severity in terms of provocation. The reasons matter, and the weight of tradition matters. "Light and transient causes" are not enough, and so:
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
When there is a longstanding pattern of abuse aimed at fundamental liberties, some variation of reform/secession/revolution is justified, and even morally compulsory. Note that Jefferson is not merely concerned with rejecting the old, abusive system, but also the necessity of replacing the old system with a new government that will properly "secure these rights." He is justifying a transition from a very bad system to a better system--tearing down the old and stopping at anarchy is not acceptable.
"--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world...."
What follows is a bill of particulars, listing the offenses of the British Crown according to Jefferson, which amount to "a long train of abuses and usurpations...evinc[ing] a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism...." The details of this list are instructive, but outside the scope of this comment. After the list, Jefferson argues that the leadership of the American States has done its due diligence, and tried to fix the situation by attempts at reform, before proceeding to secession:
"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
"Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends."
We have appealed to both the Crown and the British People for redress; neither provided it. As a result, we're walking away from this toxic relationship, but we're not going to kill your cat out of spite--we just want to go our own way. Note that Jefferson doesn't merely say that the behavior of the British Crown has been grievously bad, but that the American representatives have been particularly patient and prudent--there's an implied standard of conduct for the secessionists that continues in the final paragraph:
"We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
Jefferson wraps up with the final requirement for secessionists who are doing things correctly--you need to make your case. Not just that the suffered abuses have been so terrible, but also that you've tried lesser means and are only escalating when those means have failed, and that your judgment and restraint are being offered for consideration to both "the Supreme Judge of the world" and "the opinions of mankind." Are your reasons sufficient, or just "light and transient causes"? Do you have a plan for self-government, such that you can responsibly join the community of "Independent States"? Have you "Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms" and are you confident in the "rectitude of [y]our intentions"?
Any secessionist or revolutionary worth their salt will answer yes to those questions with confidence--such is human nature. But Jefferson clearly isn't claiming that 'we've investigated our own motives, and found them acceptable,' he's appealing to God and man to be his judges.
In my view, Jefferson adequately makes his case as to the justice of the American secession from Britain. I think other secessionary movements are a mixed bag--some meet the various thresholds of behavior and others do not. In this framework, there isn't an unfettered "right to self determination" by a given identifiable subgroup of a larger political unit, but extreme cases may present a duty to reform an abusive government, or seceed from it, or overthrow it.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
I'd offer a third take: it's likely that the high degree of overlap between parentage and culture is due to the mutual influence each has upon the other, over time, to the point that there are very good reasons it's difficult to tease the two apart.
Genetics shapes culture. If a group has a higher than normal tendency to reclusiveness, or aggression, or neuroticism, or quantitative ability, etc., then if the resulting society is to be successful, it must shape its institutions to both offset the negative impacts of that tendency as well as guide the positive aspects in a productive direction. Successful institutions must deal with people as they exist, not as anyone wishes them to be.
Culture shapes genetics. Culture is what determines status, and status heavily influences who has an easier time contributing his genes to the next generation.
Overall, I'd say the blank-slatists are trivially wrong, and the HBDers are directionally correct, but that it's unfortunately easy to overstate one's case.
ApplesauceIrishCream
1yr ago
Axiom: One of the fundamental rights of man is the right to effectively defend himself, innocent others, and his community from unjustified force levied against those targets.
The ability to effectively defend himself, etc. is very unevenly distributed in nature; an elderly woman, for example, will usually find herself on the losing end of a physical confrontation, while a young and strong man will be at an advantage most of the time.
Firearms have an extreme leveling effect in the context of effective self defense. Yes, there are degrees of skill, but the differences in terms of credible threat are trivial compared to the "no one has a gun" case. A young man with a gun poses somewhat more threat than without one, but an elderly woman with a gun is orders of magnitude better off than in the non-gun case. There are no other tools that provide anything close to this leveling effect.
Unjustified violence is commonly the province of the young and strong. If the government removes firearms from the equation, it denies the ability of the elderly and/or those physically weak to provide for their own defense effectively, thereby violating the initial axiom. I do not think it is much of a stretch to say that people whose government denies their fundamental rights are not free in that context.
The above is the summary of an argument. No doubt you can find points in either the axiom or the logic following where you disagree, but I believe it is sound.
This forum may be one of the absolute worst places on the entire internet for the members to apply their individual experiences to this particular topic. If you are here, your language skills are extremely good. Everyone here is an outlier in the same direction on this topic.
Gifted and talented students are a special problem in education, much like the learning-disabled, but for the opposite reason. For those with disabilities, it's difficult to find the right strategies to achieve education. For the gifted, nearly every strategy works, and it's difficult to find the best strategy.
Though as you note, "failing to move on when education has been achieved" is by far the most common way for the system to fail gifted students.
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