Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
Disabled Alaskan Monarchist doomer
User ID: 2666
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
Or, whichever local religious service seems most appealing to you.
None of them in my area seem to: not the Mexican cult; not the black Baptist church whose webpage advertises events by local Dem politicians; not the Lutheran church whose woman pastor's LinkedIn page has rainbow flags; and not the "you should already be Catholic before setting foot inside" Byzantine Catholic church. (The racist Islander Church appears to have moved or shut down.) None of them seem like they'd be welcoming environments for me (another problem with being a far-right atheist).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
I do not think it is going to work out well for Blue Tribe generally.
Why not? It's not like Red Tribe is going to do much more than whine about it, "vote harder," and hope that somehow, this time Left-captured enforcement agencies will start obeying orders from elected Republicans.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
Yes, the problem isn't that the Left is violent, it's that we on the Right aren't.
and if the Right wants it to stop, it needs to realize the only way to do it is to use all the force they can bring in to handle it.
Yes. And by "all the force," I, for one, mean all the force.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
Ah, thanks for explaining.
Looking at UAA's requirements, I don't meet them (my bachelor's is in physics, which means I fail the "Have completed a minimum of 6 credits in baccalaureate level Political Science (3 credits) and Descriptive/Inferential Statistics (3 credits) with a minimum grade of B" requirement).
Besides, I couldn't afford the tuition to go back to school (I can barely afford to keep myself housed and fed).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
4d ago
Don’t you see the symmetry?
Even if I grant such symmetry (and I don't), why should I care? I mean, sure, the other tribe has a lot of the same attitudes to mine as I have toward them, and they can make arguments about my side comparable to the arguments we make about them. But there's one key difference that no amount of "symmetry" or "both sides" or "meta-level" argument can erase: one tribe is mine, and the other is my enemy.
I love my family not because they're "the best" on some abstract objective metric, but because they're my family. "Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her," said G. K. Chesterton.
I want my side to win, and the other side to lose. It's just that simple.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
4d ago
If you're on the right
I'm probably too far to the right for the "normie" right-wing organizations.
If you're in a red area, you could try the MPA-to-government route
MPA? What does that stand for?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
4d ago
A normal citizen moves to a stronghold of their tribe
Can't move, but at least my state is rather red (if the city is not)
and builds a life there.
I've done about as much of that as my disability allows (meaning basically nothing)
Maybe purchase a firearm.
Prior psychiatric hospitalizations mean I can't.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
4d ago
I expect a red/black/blue millet system would make everyone happy.
Not the blues, for the reasons I give here. The Blue tribe will never accept genuine federalism, or a millet system, or any other "Peace of Westphalia"-type ending to the culture war.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
4d ago
I'd disagree, by pointing to two Jewish employees as Stanford who objected to being lumped into the "white" group by the DEI program. From Inside Higher Ed:
Two Jewish employees of Stanford University’s Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) division filed federal and state complaints alleging a hostile environment for Jewish employees in a diversity, equity and inclusion program created internally for CAPS staff.
…
“There was a blind spot in this DEI program when it came to Jewish identity,” Lewin said. “It erased Jewish identity. There was no space for these Jewish employees to share their lived experience, to raise their concerns about anti-Semitism. When they tried, they were attacked.”
…
The complaints allege that “the CAPS DEI program engages in intentional racial segregation through race-based affinity groups” and it “relies upon racial and ethnic stereotyping and scapegoating by describing all Jews as white or white-passing and therefore complicit in anti-Black racism.”
According to the complainants, CAPS staff were divided into two race-based discussion groups who met separately as part of the DEI program -- a “whiteness accountability” group and a separate group for people of color.
Albucher’s and Levin’s respective complaints allege that Jewish staff were “pressured to attend the DEI program’s racially segregated ‘whiteness accountability’ affinity group, which was created for ‘staff who hold privilege via white identity’ and ‘who are white identified, may be newly grappling with or realizing their white identity, or identify as or are perceived as white presenting or passing (aka seen as white by others even though you hold other identities).’”
“The DEI committee has also endorsed the narrative that Jews are connected to white supremacy, advancing anti-Semitic tropes concerning Jewish power, conspiracy and control,” the respective complaints allege. “By endorsing an anti-Semitic narrative that designates Jews collectively as ‘oppressors’ and responsible for systemic racism, while simultaneously denying the uniqueness of Jewish ancestral identity, the DEI committee fosters anti-Jewish sentiment and encourages hostility toward Jews (including Dr. Albucher and Ms. Levin).”
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
4d ago
Is Dick suggesting he learned to use a rifle from Hearts of Iron?
I believe that's so, because they apparently thought it was also an FPS or something. Because, when people in replies tried bringing up that he also plays video games, Dick responded with, IIRC, something like "I play games, like Mario, not violent murder simulators." Very much like the anti-gun folks who, when they end up revealing their utter ignorance of basic firearms facts, are downright smug about said ignorance. Because they hate the thing they want banned so much that even just learning something about it would be getting unacceptably close to it, and that anyone who doesn't share their ignorance is tainted by their knowledge (like how anyone familiar enough with guns to distinguish fully automatic from semi-automatic is thus "a gun nut" — yes, I've had people say this — or, as we see here, anyone familiar enough with "military" video games to know that HOI IV is a strategy game is probably just another ticking time bomb taught to murder by violent video games).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
4d ago
In the troubles, thé reds would just win.
Organization beats raw numbers and arms. The blues are organized, while the reds are the tribe composed of people "who, when someone orders us to breathe, suffocate to death" and threaten to shoot in the face anyone who so much as utters the word "organizing."
(Just try talking to my parents sometime.)
My hunting club could beat up antifa handily
Except they won't, because either 'that's not the sort of thing we do' and no coordination to do such a thing will form; or else because whichever member or members are on the FBI payroll (whether as undercovers or informants) will turn you all in.
The left won't "lose, and hard" or "all get murdered in a few weeks" because they are organized, and the right is mostly fundamentally allergic to organizing, and whatever meager attempts at such it makes are inevitably infiltrated and subverted utterly by the feds.
Plus, law enforcement is not on your side, regardless of the political sympathies of the rank-and-file. To quote one "Contaminated NEET":
I was there in 2020 when one of the statues was torn down. I won’t say which one, because I’m not an idiot. It was nothing like what was portrayed on TV and in newspapers. It wasn’t a mob the authorities couldn’t control, and it wasn’t a rapid, clandestine strike by a skilled stealth team of black-clad “activists.” It was a boring, barely-competent, bureaucratic, officially-unofficial government action, and law enforcement was an officially-unofficial part of it.
A small group of half a dozen Hutu commies milled around for 45 minutes, bumblingly attaching chains and ropes to the statue, and eventually pulling it over with a pickup truck. I’m sure anyone reading this could have done the job in half the time with half the manpower. But anyway, there were five or six state troopers, standing around and watching the whole thing. It would have been simple for them to arrest the vandals, or even just chase them away, but they were there to make sure that no members of the public would dare interfere with this most holy destructive sacrament.
My point is, law enforcement is very much on the enemy’s side.
And "[V. K. Ovelund]":
Police astonished the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., 2017, by suppressing the Right while allowing lawless Antifa to run wild. The private sympathies of individual policemen did little to prevent the police from acting in concert as the muscular arm of a tyrannical state.
I have never been a policeman but have been a serviceman and unfortunately can report that, in the heat of confrontation, servicemen like policemen are apt to follow orders reflexively. Basic military training sees to this. As far as I know, only officers influence policy to any practical extent, and even then only from the rank of full colonel or naval captain on up. Thus, although one may fill the recruiting barracks with our guys, filling those barracks regrettably might not help as much as you hope.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
the violent video game scare and so on?
Interesting you should mention this, because it's not like that one has gone away; we have people like this guy blaming the assassination of Charlie Kirk on Robinson having played "violent murder simulators":
3 of these games are extremely violent shooting and firearms simulators with graphic imagery where Tyler no doubt honed his skills and learnt how to shoot and murder.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
That doesn't follow if the difference is caused by selection, the same traits that lead people to have higher incomes also leading them to commit less crimes. (Not to mention criminal convictions and prison time decreasing income.) If criminal income disparities were primarily due to lower income causing criminality, they would be much more affected by factors like economic growth
Thank you. As a genuine poor person, I've always hated "poverty causes crime" arguments.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
This should make us happy, because it means that White people are not incredibly evil senseless folks constantly putting lther groups down and thereby making them dumber through mysterious processes.
I think there's an argument to be made that it shouldn't make us happy. I vaguely remember reading (though once again, I don't remember who, when or where) someone arguing online against Scott's position of IQ realism to combat anti-Semitism — that elite overrepresentation of Jews is due to their higher IQ, and thus they are not "incredibly evil senseless folks" engaged in ethnic conspiracy against the Gentiles. I vaguely recall the person I read quoting a couple of things from Turkheimer to support his argument, which is that this explanation will, if made widely known, will likely make anti-Semitism worse — not worse in quantity, but worse in quality.
Because maybe you have a few anti-Semites who only dislike Jewish overrepresentation because they think it's a product of "cheating" and ethnic conspiring, and if you convince them it's not, then they'll become okay with the statistical disparities. But, the argument goes, that's not most anti-Semites. No, it's the elite overrepresentation itself that's the core problem, and they care about Jewish "cheating" because they think it's the cause of that. And being falsely accused of something you're not doing — conspiring to keep other ethnic groups down — is very bad, and having people demand you stop doing the thing you aren't doing is very much a problem.
But it's better than the "IQ realism" alternative. Because it's one thing to have the people unhappy with elite overrepresentation think it's something the Jews are choosing to do — and thus could, theoretically, choose not to do. It's another to convince them that Jewish elite overrepresentation is a product of higher Jewish IQs, a hereditary trait they simply can't help; that it's not something the Jews are doing, it's an inevitable product of their nature. Because if you want to get rid of Jewish elite overrepresentation (whatever the cause), and Jewish elite overrepresentation is an inevitable product of the existence and presence of Jews in your society, then the only solution can be…. (Hence, the person argued, the only way to deal with anti-Semites is to censor and suppress them.)
The analogy to black-white race relations is rather straightforward. I've effortposted here before on the Kendian academic model of "racism" as synonymous with "disparate impact" (and while I tend to reference Kendi, he didn't actually say anything new, he merely said in plainer, more outsider-accessible language what previous academics had been expressing in more subtle jargon for decades prior). It doesn't matter that "White people are not incredibly evil senseless folks constantly putting lther groups down and thereby making them dumber through mysterious processes" — all that matters is that we've made a society in which success correlates with IQ; that this means an ethnic group with an mean IQ of 85 will be less successful in the statistical aggregate than one of mean IQ 100 is just the way in which our society has "white supremacism" and "systemic racism" baked in. "Anti-racism" means reordering society to remove this IQ-success correlation, at least in racial aggregates.
And if you answer like many people do — especially "gray tribe" sorts — that the correlation of IQ with outcomes is because intelligence is deeply important to outcomes, particularly in a modern high-tech society like ours, and strongly correlated to competence; so that in basically any moderately-functional society, all things held equal, IQ is always going to positively correlate with good outcomes… well, then you're just arguing that no amount of (plausible) rejiggering of society will eliminate "systemic racism," and that the problem as the academics above define it — white (and Jewish and Asian) elite overrepresentation is an inevitable product of the existence of white people. And thus, the talk of "eliminating whiteness" takes on a whole new tone if you accept IQ realism.
(This is a part of a much bigger discussion on how the "liberal consensus" worldview seems to hold that peaceful coexistence requires a certain level of cognitive and genetic homogeneity, that humans be mostly fungible and most differences "skin-deep"; and that any large, hereditary gaps in things like IQ — whether currently extant, or a product of future genetic modification — would make genocide inevitable; that either the high-IQ must cleanse the world of those less intelligent, or that the low-IQ must rise up and slaughter their more-intelligent would-be overlords. Malcolm Collins touched on this point, with references to Star Trek's position on genetic enhancement, in a recent Based Camp podcast episode.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
The federal agencies in question refuse to prosecute. How would you suggest Republicans force them to start prosecuting?
My suggestion — personnel is policy. Purge the people who work for those agencies, and replace them with people how will prosecute. It's the same advice I give when it comes to every way in which the Federal bureaucracy are being Leftists who #Resist when Republicans win elections. (Note, I didn't say "when Republicans are in charge" because merely winning elections and taking charge are two different things.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
8d ago
At what point can one reasonably conclude that coexistence between the Red and Blue tribes isn't possible, and there's nothing left to do but wage the culture war as hard as necessary, until one side or the other fully triumphs? And what does one do after reaching that conclusion (besides leaving this site, of course, since that runs counter to the basic ethos of the Motte)?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
8d ago
I don't give a damn about your reverence for rules or processes. The human intestine is a process, but you don't praise its product: you flush it away. Breaking the rules in this case is a good thing. It should happen more.
I'd just like to chime in here for expressing this view, which I share, in such a clear and pithy manner.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
9d ago
Nothing about Nepal?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
9d ago
I am not willing to have my tribe reduced to second-class-citizen status
And when the Blues use their domination of institutional power centers to so reduce you, what're you gonna do about it?
I am not willing to allow Blues to use lawless political violence to suppress my views and political activity.
And when Blues do use political violence so, what're you gonna do about it?
If that is Blue Tribe's best offer, as it in fact seems to be, I and many Reds like me prefer war.
And after your so-called "war" — composed entirely of poorly-aimed, uncoordinated "lone wolf" attacks (because anything more effective would require levels of coordination of which the Red Tribe is incapable, and also to which the Red Tribe is utterly hostile (just spend time in Sarah Hoyt's comments section, or the Instapundit comments, about how anyone who so much as utters the words "organizing" or "joining" or "coordinating" is a "fed" and will be shot in the face, and that the only "strategy" is for each individual household to fort up to defend, all on their lonesome, when "they" Come For Our Guns™)) — is defeated, not by the military, but by ordinary civilian law enforcement (because that's all you need to handle such independent actors), what then?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
10d ago
Skeletor used this phrase: "knowingly and falsely accused followers of the president of murder". Kimmel did not make any accusation at all.
And the Italian gentlemen with the crooked nose who walked into your business and said "Nice place you've got here; it would be a shame if something were to happen to it" did not make any threat at all, he just complemented your business and mused on a hypothetical situation.
Come off it. I mean, I get that maybe some really autistic sorts have difficulty with this kind of Gricean implicature, but most human beings understand pretty well how language works, and this sort of "um, well technically he didn't explicitly say…" nonsense is just that. It's a sad, transparent attempt at deflection, and I doubt that anyone but Futurama's Head Bureaucrat would actually buy it.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
11d ago
The best comment I've seen on this was Roseanne Barr's tweet replying to David Frum (who was trying the "imagine how you all on the right would be complaining if the situations were reversed" attempt, with an implicit labelling of anyone supporting Kimmel's firing as "fascist"):
Yeah imagine an administration putting pressure on a television channel to fire a comedian they didn’t like.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
11d ago
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
12d ago
Because America loves Star Wars.
They want a clear bad guy and a clear good guy and it'd be best if the bad guy's sword was red so they could tell he was bad.
You might like this Substack piece by Librarian of Celaeno (assuming you haven't read it already): "Jedi Brain":
Jedi Brain is a term (I’ve also heard Disney Brain, Marvel Brain, and the like) for a mental state wherein people’s main frame of reference for understanding politics, war, and the interrelationship between them is mass media entertainment products. There are good guys and bad guys, each occupying a respective political identity, and it is the job of the former to seek a more just order by destroying the latter. Narrative coherence tends toward the personification of each side in small groups of heroes on the one hand and one big villain on the other. This latter figure is the wellspring of Team Evil’s grand scheme; if he is destroyed, so goes with him all the bad stuff he represents.
…
This final point is key; Jedi Brain is a form of groupthink that flourishes largely (but not exclusively) among people who expect neither to suffer nor inflict violence themselves. They are secure from it. For them, killing people is an abstract question decided on the basis on whether the good guys will be helped by it, which will in any case occur far away. Negative forces in the world are under the direction of supervillains, who must be destroyed for good to flourish, and upon their destruction peace, harmony, and the sort of personal safety and well-being the Jedi-Brained individual has will simply arise as a kind of emergent property of his noble efforts, or rather the noble efforts of the heroes who will engage in the actual violence, far from the clatter of keyboards. It’s not only neocons who think that every third-world dictator is Adolf Hitler; it’s arguably the default way most of the population now imagines the world, even if only implicitly.
…
Politics- sublimated violence- follows the same trajectory. One can see Jedi Brain on full display deployed against Donald Trump and his MAGA storm troopers, right down to the “Resistance” imagery from the terrible new Disney trilogy being circulated among those terrified at his election in 2016. In addition to being Darth Vader, he’s also Hitler, and also Voldemort, because to the people who deploy those allusions, they’re all the same thing. The boundaries between fiction and reality collapse into a media machine that undifferentiates them, blending them into a narrative where the evil on a page or a screen is the same whether it’s a dark wizard, a wrestling heel, a murderous dictator, or a random internet istophobe. The proper response to any evil, which is all evil, is to demonstrate emotion comprehensible and acceptable to others with whom you wish to identify, in much the same way the public expression of consumer choices validates one as a member of a fandom. Zelensky and the latest Dr. Who trailer- liked and reposted, of course- it’s just the right thing to do.
Except I'd argue that the past decade and change serve to illustrate why that doesn't work, because the president isn't actually in charge of the Executive any more (see basically everything MacIntyre talks about here, or this from Jim). FBI JTTF goes after the "domestic terrorists" it wants to, not the ones the President directs them at — as we saw when Bush the younger tried to redirect them from chasing specters of the Klan to Muslim jihadis.
Our democracy is a sham. It's as fake as pro wrestling.
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