Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
Disabled Alaskan Monarchist doomer
User ID: 2666
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
6mo ago
Trump is abolishing Affirmative Action in federal contracting. He is going to order the government to pressure private companies to end Affirmative Action.
No, he's merely giving an executive order to a nominally-subordinate vast bureaucracy, ready to delay, leak, disobey, to cease these things. Whether they obey? Well…
Executive actions are executive orders. EOs have the legal force of a tweet. You can’t go to jail for disobeying a tweet, even if the President tweeted it. Or an EO.
In real life, EOs work when they order an agency to do something it wants to do. In fact, they are generally written by the agency itself. They are certainly reviewed by the agency. EOs are not written high at 3am by Elon Musk with a sharpie on a Denny’s napkin, even if they probably should be. If you know DC, can you make something happen with an EO? Of course. Depends what, though.
…
Basically, DOGE is promising to save the government money through… bureaucratic trench warfare. If you think an executive order is in any way executive, like private sector executive, like actually executive—read about how the process works.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
6mo ago
The Supreme Court will surely rule to uphold birthright citizenship, right?
Oh, certainly. But then, there's the question of whether Jim might be right when he says things like:
Doubtless the left will say of the order ending birthright citizenship “Hey, Civics 101, an executive order must have a basis in existing law or the constitution. You cannot change the constitution by executive order” That is normality bias. We have not had laws nor a constitution for a long time. There will be a supreme court case over birthright censorship, but it will matter as much as the Queen arriving in a stagecoach to open Parliament matters.
and:
It is normality bias to think that the upcoming Supreme court case on anchor babies matters. Whether these executive orders have actual effect is going to be resolved in a different way.
Augustus Caesar had military victory and death squads, and it still took him twelve years to get the Roman government in order. Trump has none of those, but he has made an impressive start.
We have long said that America’s problems are coup complete. When Trump was president, but not in power, and the presidency was in power, we often said that Trump should perform an autogolpe against the presidency. Trump has issued a pile of executive orders against the presidency, which look very like an autogolpe. That the border orders and the hostage rescue took effect makes it likely that the autogolpe will take effect. But, on the other hand, even after sending most of the long parliament home, Cromwell found it heavy going, and so did Augustus Caesar.
If Trump’s decrees subjecting the presidency to the president stick, all his decrees will stick, including constitutional amendment by presidential decree. If they do not, none of them will stick. I am still keeping my head down because I do not want to be J6ed.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
I always ask people: if not the United States, where would you go?
I've long been answering that question for people, in two different senses.
In one sense, my answer would be ideally that Alaska becomes it's own independent country — I seriously pissed off my 4th grade teacher for writing a "social studies" report in support of the Alaska Independence Party — and failing that, that Russia takes us back.
In the other sense, I've given my list before, starting, in order of preference, with Liechtenstein, then Monaco, and ending with Eswatini. And as always, for why I haven't already moved to one of those places, it's because none of them will take be; as a schizophrenic welfare parasite, no country on Earth will let me legally immigrate, and so I'm stuck here in the US whether I like it or not.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
The Facebook blame for Myanmar sounds a lot like the justification for Trump and Christian Nationalists and MAGA gaining support via social media. It couldn’t possibly be that people were choosing crime-think when given freedom to choose, it must be the algorithm (and you better change it to support the neoliberal ideology or else) or Russia (who somehow manages to look and sound like ordinary white Americans dissatisfied with The Narrative) or literally anything other than “they don’t like us”.
Meanwhile, on Tumblr, I'm seeing left-wing people arguing the other side: that plenty of American voters quite simply did choose crime-think when given freedom to choose… and therefore those people are evil Nazis, and those who cannot be forcefully "reeducated" are beyond reaching and must be removed from society (and, most likely, removed from life).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
There's a reason I like to bring up HBD blogger "Jayman" on these discussions, because he was rather forthright about his support for HBD, and hard line hereditarianism (for one, he liked to argue that poor outcomes for children of single mothers are entirely due to genetic differences between the kind of women who end up single mothers and the kind who end up married mothers [and between the kind of men who knock up the former and the kind of men who marry the latter], and have nothing to do with the actual single-parent environment at all), being about justifying racial spoils in perpetuity. He'd argue that the infamous crime stat differentials are entirely due to blacks being genetically predisposed to criminality… and therefore they can't help it, and thus society owes it to them to punish them less harshly and less often than whites to compensate for this genetic disprivilege; and that black-on-white (and black-on-Asian, and black-on-Jewish) crime — which he once characterized in HBDChick's comments section as "a one-way race war" — is simply something that the less criminally-inclined races are obligated to tolerate, even indulge. That the reality of HBD means that the "genetic have" races are morally obligated to redistribute as much of their wealth to the "genetic have-not" races — particularly blacks — as is necessary to "close the gaps" and produce "racial equity" in perpetuity.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
but if blacks have a lower average IQ, then you can take racism out of the equation.
No you can't; not the way the academic and legal "experts" define "racism." Proving group IQ differences doesn't demonstrate that IQ tests aren't racist, it demonstrates how using IQ tests is racist.
Likewise, Jews are overrepresented in elite universities and positions of power. Is that the result of an insidious Semitic plot? Possibly, or it could just be that they have a higher average IQ than Gentiles.
I remember seeing quotes from someone arguing that this is a terrible strategy for combatting anti-Semitism, because if people determined to eliminate Jewish overrepresentation think it's due to "insidious plotting," their initial efforts will be to make Jews stop doing such plotting — which is, of course, bad, because you can't stop doing something you were never doing in the first place. But if you convince those people that Jewish overrepresentation is due to inborn, hereditary traits — that the Jews can't help it, and it's an inevitable outcome of their nature — then you convince them that the only way to eliminate Jewish overrepresentation is to eliminate Jews, so they'll start there, which is much worse.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
I am unusual here because after thinking about it, I think the “bad idea” might well have been the enlightenment itself
Unusual, perhaps, but you're not alone here.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
I think it's likely* (not guaranteed) that the Doge comes in with hundreds or thousands of high IQ workaholics that will have the bandwidth to undo all Biden's bullshit before making sweeping changes of their own.
I disagree strongly. DOGE is almost certainly going to be less effective than the Church Commission:
In 1981, America was still a serious country. Compared to now, anyway. It is a fallacy to assume that we can pump more joules into the same target. We have less to pump. When we print out the final report of DOGE and put it on a shelf next to the 47-volume work product of Reagan’s Grace Commission, which will look more serious?
47 volumes! Think about all the people who put all that work into all those reports. Some of them must still be alive today. They must know that if none of this work had ever been done, the world 40 years later would not be even slightly different. Sad!
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.
-The Analects, Book 1, Part 2
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
Like others have said, it's a useful heuristic. I'd say that's because it connects to the same idea as "set a thief to catch a thief," and black hat hackers becoming top security consultants. Who knows better how to defend against a tactic than those expert in it's use? If you want to know how to build the strongest safe, ask the world's best safecracker.
This is why I get frustrated with fellows on the right who make arguments like 'well, if the left took over all these institutions via an entryist "long march," why don't we just do our own "long march" infiltration to take them back?" or 'since the left so effectively weaponized demographic change against us (via mass immigration), we'll easily be able to weaponize it right back (via birth rates).' It misses that in the past cases, the right was not on guard against these tactics from the left, but the left, being intimately familiar with them, will see them coming and be prepared to shut them down. No institution is better protected against entryists attempting to infiltrate than one which has already been taken by entryists. (Again, who knows better how to stop and catch a burglar than a better, more experienced burglar.) And just because the right mostly stood by and did little when the left used mass immigration, does not mean the left will stand by and let right-wingers outbreed them. If anything, it means the opposite: they'll be watching demographics closely, on watch for the slightest sign of reversal, and ready to use any and all means at their disposal to shut down any attempt from the start.
It's not about 'rejecting "tools" on association with the enemy' (I personally hate that argument), it's about classic, pragmatic strategy, going all the way back to Sun-Tsu, about not fighting battles that inherently favor the enemy.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
If I had to take a swipe at how it might be different I could see there being a luddite/anti-tech angle.
I find this highly dubious. As others have noted, wokeness is in many ways a product of tech, and social media specifically, and a number of their issues — most notably around transgender — require the magnifying effect of the internet and media to maintain relevance.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
Not waste trillions on forever wars in the middle east with no prospect of success. Maga is the opposite of the fiascos of nation building from the mainstream republicans.
Well, there's some on the right — though, per your later point about "younger republicans," these skew older — who belong to what Parvini calls the "counter-jihadis." For them, the answer is that it's not about "nation building" or bringing democracy, feminism, and LGBT tolerance to the Middle East, it's about killing Muslims — because either you're killing Muslims, or Muslims are killing you.
I remember one, shortly after Oct. 7, demanding that US troops be sent over to start killing Gazans, because if we didn't do so right now, we'd have similar attacks in countless American towns, and that the whole reason the attack happened in the first place is because we weren't keeping the Muslims suppressed enough, which is why we need to make sure that we are bombing or shooting Muslims in multiple countries 24/7/365.
I've encountered arguments about how there are no civilian casualties in Gaza because there's no such thing as a Muslim civilian, that every single one of them — even a newborn — is a valid military target. About how there are no moderate Muslims, only those biding their time and practicing taqiyya, and how even the most well-integrated and moderate-seeming Muslim could suddenly commit a terrorist attack at any given moment. How the First Amendment doesn't apply to "Mohammedanism," because it's not really a religion at all, but a political ideology of murderous global conquest — much like Nazism — trying to pass itself off as a religion. How Islam is and has always been the number one enemy of Christendom — with invocations of Charles Martell, the Reconquista, the Gates of Vienna, the Crusades, etc. — and thus fighting them must remain the West's highest priority. (I find this one skews a bit younger and more online than the rest, tending to come with a fondness for "Deus Vult" and "Make Istanbul Constantinople Again" memes.) Lots of "founded by a pedophile warlord" comments.
Israel actively supporting jihadists in Syria hurts their supposed "anti-islam" stance.
Yeah, and that has quieted some of these folks a bit, though there's a certain amount of "enemy of my enemy" and "it's a complex situation" rationalization that happens IME.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
If there was a way to poll trump voters who also deny the Holocaust, I suspect that poll would show strong support for Israel in its wars against Palestinians.
This doesn't match my personal experience… but then again, the "Holocaust-denying" sorts I know IRL weren't exactly big on Trump — either from a 'not voting until the left is actually correct about the GOP candidate being Hitler' position, or a 'they're both ZOG puppets, but Harris winning would at least keep more attention on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has been the best thing in decades for waking people up to the vile, murderous inborn character of the Eternal Jew' position.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
His base has won absolutely nothing from the last few decades of neo con wars. His base got nothing but debt and mentally ill veterans from the fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Who exactly do you think Trump's "base" is. More specifically, who matters more, the average (R) voter, or the "donor class"? I can't find it again, but I remember a bit circulating right-wing circles online some years ago, quoting an interview with a Republican "campaign advisor" who got a little too honest with the interviewer and said that his job was basically to help GOP candidates more convincingly lie to red state rubes about how they're going to do the various stupid things these voters want, all the while knowing, as all Republican candidates do, that once in office their job will be to do none of that, and deliver what the deep-pocket donors want instead.
Trumps loyalty should be to the US, not people whose loyalty is to other countries.
"Should be" ≠ "is."
I've been heavily persuaded by thinkers like Yarvin and Parvini (who have many disagreements) about how elite backers matter so much more than the peasant masses who have nothing but their (meaningless) votes, and "democracy" is a sham. For example, the H1B fight: Musk is going to get his way, because he matters, and millions of "Trump voters" simply don't.
For an alternative narrative (which I don't exactly share) I know some right-wing anti-Trump people — a very much different group from the "Never Trumper" crowd — who have their own narrative about 'who is Trump's real base.' These acquaintances held that the "Russian collusion" narrative was pretty much correct in all the broad strokes… except for having the wrong country. They argued that when people say that Trump didn't (or wasn't able to) deliver for his base in his first term, they're wrong: Trump very much did deliver what his actual backers, the people who installed him in the White House, put him there to do: "moving the embassy to Jerusalem and tax cuts for (((billionaires)))." (Cue more comments about Kushner, "the Tribe," "ZOG," and how it would have been better if Harris won, because at least then we'd have more attention paid to the "ongoing genocide" in Gaza, etc.)
And further, I'd conclude by asking why we should be trying to "make America great again" when "American greatness" is what got Western Civilization into the mess it's in in the first place.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
I replied elsewhere in the thread: 43.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
You can choose to advance toward your goals
Which means nothing if I don't actually get there. This is why I hate the whole idea of "grading on effort." You either got the right answer or you didn't. You either accomplish a goal, or you don't. How much effort you put in is completely and totally irrelevant!
It doesn't matter if you fail to achieve a goal after thirty minutes, or thirty years. It doesn't matter if you spend your whole life in pursuit of the goal. The only thing that matters is that you failed! In fact, the latter is arguably worse, because you wasted time and effort on something that didn't work.
Results are the only thing that matters. If you try really hard to do something, but never succeed? Then you might as well have never tried at all.
No, just plug the controller back in.
I'm not grasping your metaphor here.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
I have absolutely no idea what you mean here.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
You can. But why not do something in the meantime?
By "call it quits and take the exit" I mean the exit on life. I'm saying that "going forward" isn't the only thing I can do, because there's always the option of suicide.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
This is not maga; there’s no deep history lore to justify blood and soil.
In support of this, I here submit Neema Parvini's "MAGA as Fulfillment of the Kali Yuga":
While writing The Prophets of Doom, it struck me several times, especially during the chapters on both Thomas Carlyle and Julius Evola, that Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are more truly liberal and truly democratic than their opponents. In other words, there are no truer believers in The Populist Delusion than the populists themselves. When Carlyle talks about the spirit of democracy as a spiral downwards and when Evola talks about involution as the inevitable consequence of American-style liberalism, it is difficult to picture the Davos set or even the decrepit incumbents of the Washington regime because these people do not embody the spirit of plebian energy ‘from below’ described by Carlyle or Evola. MAGA is a low-status ‘working people’s’ populist movement against a powerful, entitled and rich elite. If one considers the classic Anacyclosis as outlined by Polybius (see below), one can spot that the Trumpian figure comes after the oligarchy.
…
This way of thinking about the current predicament gives rise to some strange thoughts. For example, and I voiced this on my appearance on the Alexandria podcast, what if life under the populists is even more intolerably degenerate than life under the Regime? Afterall, MAGA is probably the most genuinely non-racist, pro-black, pro-LGBT, ‘easy going’ and ‘true 90s liberal’ movement ever to exist (aside from, possibly, the British Tory party since Boris Johnson). ‘We have won our country back!’ cry a right-wing led exclusively by people like Kari Lake and Caitlyn Jenner as the black Zoomer in the MAGA hat posts a video of himself drinking Coca-Cola to a Libs of Tik-Tok video to 100k+ likes on twitter. This is really what MAGA is in its core essence. Jerry Springer passed away recently, but his real legacy was MAGA, in all its gauche, loud American awfulness. Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
although maybe fewer per capita than other areas
Alaska has had the most male-skewed sex ratio of any state since before I was born.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
You can only go forward.
No, you can also call it quits and take the exit.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
Meditate on the mundane truthfulness and wisdom of corny motivational poster bromides that you have to get busy living.
Or get busy dying.
The point of starting something else is that the alternative is continuing on the current path which demonstrated by your post clearly isn't satisfying, so even if the something else isn't satisfying either at least it's novel.
Or there's the third alternative: ending it all.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
Sorry, I input my age as a number at the start of my reply, and the formatting turned it into a numerical list point. Should be fixed.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
7mo ago
Let's see what happens with Elon / Vivek, but they might be the ones that end up burned from this.
To quote Parvini's most recent Substack:
Power is top-down. Democracy is an illusion. At best, one can say that this or that group of elites gets their friends elected. Power is never bottom-up, never comes as the result of a government-sanctioned street protest, a ratio, the fact you got 20,000 likes on Twitter, or because you ‘redpilled the normies’. When I wrote The Populist Delusion a couple of years ago, it was to teach these fundamentals of power. Many thousands of people read this book, but alas its lessons were not, in the end, internalised.
And later:
As I’ve pointed out countless times, there is no trade off. How it works is as follows: a big donor, whether Zionist, Tech Bro, or any other stripe, gives resources and in exchange they get what they want. You, dear voter, like the kids in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, GET NOTHING, YOU LOSE, GOOD DAY SIR. The costs to Trump of not going along with H-1B Visas or uncritical and blind Israel support is billions of dollars and institutional support. The cost to Trump of betraying the voters? None. ‘This time it will be different, get in the crystal’, they will cry. To which I can only say, ‘do not be silly, no it won’t be.’
All power belongs to a tiny elite; the masses do not matter. Elon and Vivek can't "get burned," because they're each one more powerful than all 77 million Trump voters put together.
No, it can't. Not with legal mechanisms, anyway.
No, you can't. Because you need people able and willing to carry things out. Only one side has that.
No, we probably can't.
No, I can't imagine people actually doing so. They'll do a lot of pointless stuff that feels like fighting — and winning — in the moment, but doesn't actually amount to anything. (See Yarvin here and here).
Of course they are. They have every time before; if only because they'll be forced to.
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