Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
No bio...
User ID: 1864
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
8mo ago
Cynical read is that you're always talking about Hunter Biden. Breitbart has written 134,000 articles mentioning Hunter Biden and pumps out like 5 or 6 a day. Fox News has written 260,000 articles about Hunter Biden between January 1st, 2020 and today. You'd be saying this if it had dropped last month, last week, or next year. When, exactly, should the indictment have been unsealed to satisfy you?
Ah, right. The answer is never, isn't it?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
30d ago
Much of the core messaging on the right is explicitly 'anti-agency,' for lack of a better word. You're unemployed because the government shipped your jobs overseas, you're addicted to fentanyl because of corrupt doctors and politicians in bed with Chinese companies flooding the country, men are depressed and committing suicide because of feminism/hostile society/subversion of traditional gender roles, you're poor because immigrants are driving down your wages.
When is the last time a politician or right-wing influencer told someone from West Virginia that they have the power to improve their life by relocating, retraining or abstaining from drugs? I can accept that even if they did believe that, saying so publicly would be political suicide...but do you think that they believe it? Do you yourself believe that, or do you agree with most of the statements I made above?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1mo ago
Trans/queer; the new punk
A plague is corrupting the youth of Athens. Men dress like women, sport long, dyed hair and refuse to wrestle in the coliseum or participate in polite society. Women dress like men. Both mutilate their bodies to the consternation of their elders and abscond from their parents homes in droves.
I am, of course, talking about punks. And emos, goths and metalheads if I can lump everyone into the same bucket to make my life easier.
Having a fluorescent blue footlong mohawk, tattoos, piercings and a leather jacket made you eminently unemployable outside of menial service jobs and was the fashion equivalent of telling the world to go fuck itself. ‘Posers’ would get a tiny tattoo on their ankle or something and listen to the wrong music, then cover it up for their day job. Plenty of people will be nonbinary on the weekend and just pass as whatever gender they were assigned at birth Monday-Friday. 15 years ago, the mainstream was sharing cringe videos of emos and goths instead of the ‘it is ma’am’ person.
I believe that there are genuine trans people in the world who have always felt uncomfortable in their body. Numerous posts here have already described the rapid rise in trans youth so I won’t belabor the point, but my thesis (which will no doubt tank my career when this account is doxxed) is that a large fraction of these youth are protesting the gender binary and heteronormativity rather than experiencing a true, deep-seated gender identity different from what they were assigned at birth. A man wearing a dress, long hair or makeup is rebelling against arbitrary norms around clothing/fashion that evolved for a vastly different society with different needs. Spend some time on Feeld, okcupid or other dating apps (especially within the poly community), and you’ll see many people who identify as trans or queer and aren’t so much trying to pass as telling the system to go fuck itself by refusing to conform to gender norms.
Boomers and Gen Xers decrying trans youth and trans culture are Barbara Streisanding the phenomenon; the fact that you hate it is what makes it appealing to many kids in the first place! In the same way that being a punk is a nonissue today, the future of trans is becoming a minority of the population who wear the clothes that they want, use the bathrooms they want and nobody cares. Meanwhile, we’ll all be losing our minds about otherkin or pluralkin. Or maybe this guy. This isn’t to dismiss the harms that punks and anarchists may have caused in their time; I can think of a couple small-scale riots and businesses burned in my hometown during Mostly Peaceful demonstrations that got out of hand. The trans movement undoubtedly isn’t an unalloyed good and criticism will likely be valuable to reign in the excesses as it evolves into whatever the endgame is.
History may rhyme, but it’s true that it never directly repeats itself. The punk community, obviously, placed a large emphasis on music and art. While queercore is a thing, as was PWR BTTM pre-cancellation, the trans movement clearly isn’t centered on music in the same way. This could just be a shift in protest/underground culture, as neither punk nor metal carry the same bite that they used to - I saw Rancid about 10-15 years ago and even then no amount of cocaine could give them the energy they had in the 90s. Napalm Death was a hell of a time, but it hits a bit different when the entire crowd is in their 30s-50s instead of their teens. Kids are on their phones instead of listening to the radio, hanging out at the skate park and going to punk shows - as a result, protest culture just looks different than it used to, but I believe the trans movement are the ideological inheritors of the punk movement.
The other major difference, and one place where I expect the most pushback, is that punk was anti-authoritarian, anarchist and explicitly ungovernable. On the other hand, major media outlets, schools and ‘The Cathedral’ are explicitly pro-trans. I would argue that while the progressive activists are genuine they are vastly in the minority, and opposed by an equally loud minority with inverted views if not quite the same institutional reach. The majority in the center make pro-trans noises, but at the end of the day they aren’t going to date a trans person or wear clothes that don’t match their gender.
As an aside, if I can ramble for a bit - the corollary to Cthulhu swimming left is that youth crave rebellion and transgression, only to grow up and normalize whatever was shocking to their elders. Septum piercings and tattoos were ‘big deals’ growing up, whereas I have friends who are academics in good standing with visible tattoos and piercings. Going way back, lindy hop in the Savoy ballroom 12 was viewed as scandalous, whereas now it’s largely practiced by white retirees in their 60s-70s and millenial STEMlords who like dancing predetermined patterns. Elvis shocked the nation with gyrating hips in a performance tamer than 99% of the content on instagram. Punk and metal have vastly less appeal for Zoomers in the same way that the Beatniks and Hippies held no sway over the Millenials; each generation of youth pushes for progress and wants to do something transgressive. I’ll leave it to someone smarter than I to make the case that this freedom and spirit of rebellion is core to what makes America and the West great, but I do genuinely believe it.
Anyways. I, for one, can’t wait to see 60-70 year old millennials trying to dance like this. See you all grinding on the nursing home stripper poles in a couple decades.
Obligatory statement to head off some remarks: minors being able to medically transition against the wishes of their parents makes me deeply uncomfortable. I don’t support public school children being forced to attend drag queen story hour, but have no problem with people who want to bring their own children. Most other trans-associated culture war topics (pronouns, bathrooms, clothes, whatever) I'm fine with.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
2mo ago
In context I'd defend it as 'freedom not to have one's children indoctrinated into the state religion'
Indeed; mask mandates are also pro-liberty as they give people the freedom to not worry about getting COVID in the train. Censorship gives LGBT and minorities freedom from hate speech. Jailing Donald Trump will give us freedom from fascism and neo-nazism.
Censorship is inherently illiberal however you try and dress it up. That doesn't make it bad. There's such an aversion to censorship that when we actually decide we want to engage in it we have to lie to ourselves and dress it up as some freedom or another.
school is mandatory and funded by all sides of the political spectrum after all.
Better argument for the curriculum. Bad argument for book bans. Nobody is forcing your child to look at those books any more than anyone was forcing the other high school kids to go to that party.
I don't think it's unreasonable to demand a neutral curriculum
Whew. Good luck with that one, man.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
2mo ago
It says "Moms for Liberty" right on the tin
And yet, most of their advocacy revolves around banning books and curricula discussing LGBT, trans and civil rights issues:
Accompanying that letter is an 11-page spreadsheet with complaints about books on the district’s curriculum, ranging from popular books on civil rights heroes to books about poisonous animals (“text speaks of horned lizard squirting blood out of its eyes”), Johnny Appleseed (“story is sad and dark”), and Greek and Roman mythology (“illustration of the goddess Venus naked coming out of the ocean...story of Tantalus and how he cooks up, serves, and eats his son.”) A book about hurricanes is no good (“1st grade is too young to hear about possible devastating effects of hurricanes”) and a book about owls is designated as a downer. (“It’s a sad book, but turns out ok. Not a book I would want to read for fun,” an adult wrote of the owl book in the spreadsheet.)
...
At one juncture, the group implores the school district to include more charitable descriptions of the Catholic Church when teaching a book about astronomer Galileo Galilei, who was persecuted by said church for suggesting that Earth revolves around the sun. “Where is the HERO of the church?” the group’s spreadsheet asks, “to contrast with their mistakes? There are so many opportunities to teach children the truth of our history as a nation. The Church has a huge and lasting influence on American culture. Both good and bad should be represented. The Christian church is responsible for the genesis of Hospitals, Orphanages, Social Work, Charity, to name a few.” MFL’s Williamson County chapter also takes issue with a picture book about seahorses, in part because it depicted “mating seahorses with pictures of postions [sic] and discussion of the male carrying the eggs.”
So painting them as being about Liberty in any meaningful sense of the word, other than Liberty being a red-tribe codeword, seems patently dishonest. Their objections to content are often explicitly political and coded red-tribe. Some of the shit that was banned in Florida schools a few years ago was hilariously inoffensive.
As for the OP, whatever. I don't really care. But if people bothered to look at the context, I'd expect most to at least get a chuckle out of the fact that people clutching their pearls at the idea of their child being exposed to the idea that gay people exist then get schwasted with them on the weekend in between threesomes.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1mo ago
Do you think you're better than him?
Nope.
The point in your favor for suggesting moderation is balanced by your politely-phrased smug tone.
As someone who supports some of the causes he decries to varying degrees, how do you think I'm supposed to participate in this conversation exactly? I could respond in kind and we could fling feces at each other while you tut tut and enjoy the show. Or more realistically I'm buried in feces by the largely right-leaning commentariat.
I could craft a thoughtful response to some of his individual points, but what kind of conversation do you think he and I will have?
I could be the apologetic, liberal whipping boy who takes his lumps for That Bad Thing The People I Don't Like Did This Week.
I've done enough of all three. At a certain point a spade is a spade, and a bad post is a bad post. I can link you to massive exchanges I've had extending weeks and tens of thousands of words with FcfromSSC, gattsuru, professorgerm (now desolation, I believe?) and others so clearly I'm capable of having a decent conversation with people who hold very different beliefs. The process certainly changed my worldview.
That hasn't happened in...upwards of a year, I don't think? I'm sure you could make the argument that I changed rather than the space, but then I'd challenge you to show me any interesting and civil back-and-forth between a real liberal and conservative here that's happened recently. At a certain point, what exactly am I supposed to do with OP?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
From OP:
In related olds, DisruptJ6 protestors, despite alleging molestation going on for a longer period of time, and interfering with bodily autonomy in much more invasive ways, have yet to be given money.
What it says in the article they linked:
The detainees list several issues. The conditions allegedly include no religious services or visitations, "black mold" and "worms" on the jail's walls and in food, abuse by guards, and vaccine requirements for visits and other services. They also say their clothing sent to laundry is returned covered in "brown stains, pubic hair and or reeking of ripe urine." And they say they've lost eyesight and hair because of "malnourishment.
So...prison? You can't expect me to believe that in a forum where people routinely express a desire to murder carjackers and other petty thieves that someone being outraged about moldy food and dirty clothes without pushback is evidence of anything other than blatant tribalism*. Not to mention the use of the word 'molestation' without providing any evidence that they were sexually assaulted in prison - which, for all I know, exists, but they don't link to it and (lest I be accused of not doing my homework again) some basic google searches of 'january 6th protestors prison rape' or 'january 6th protestors sexual assault' only turns up a few cases of the protestors themselves raping children or assaulting women. Or perhaps you'll claim that they used the word 'molested' per the dated 'Alice and Bob arrived at their destination unmolested,' but now the level of mental gymnastics you're expecting from me to imagine that the OP is being fair or charitable exceeds my modest IQ.
From OP:
Recently the US city of New York, decided that BLM protestors that felt victimized by the police preventing from running amok, deserve 21500 USD (28267877.5 KRW) each.
From the article they linked:
They were restrained with tight plastic handcuffs also known as zip ties by officers who were not masked as the pandemic raged. Officers wielding batons swung at protesters and hit them with pepper spray, according to the lawsuit.
You can also follow a link to videos of the protestors being beaten. Why would you frame them as 'feeling' like they were victimized when they were beaten with batons and pepper sprayed?
From OP:
But now the what the Hot Coffee Incident was in common perception notable for, harm suffered being greatly outweighed by compensation, has come true. Thus making protesting a net-gain, unless one views publicly supporting BLM to be so immoral, as there existing no sum high enough for which one would do it.
Between 15 and 30 million people protested that summer. Three hundred are eligible for a payout. Based on the estimates in the NYT article, 180-230 will collect and some other undefined number have already settled. From the evidence provided, OP's argument is that some minute fraction of BLM protestors being paid out makes protesting liberal causes anywhere in the United States a net positive, which is frankly idiotic and ignores all the jail time that BLM protestors did receive:
The AP found that more than 120 defendants across the United States have pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial of federal crimes including rioting, arson and conspiracy. More than 70 defendants who’ve been sentenced so far have gotten an average of about 27 months behind bars. At least 10 received prison terms of five years or more.
Do you think OP's inflammatory claims brought a reasonable amount of evidence?
We could have an actual conversation about events - the ping-ponging hypocrisy of conservatives swinging from prison inmates FAFO'd to moral outrage at the in-group suffer, and liberals salivating over the possibility of January 6th rioters being prison-raped. From conservatives being hostile or apathetic towards women's sports to suddenly being outraged that the purity of women's sports might be compromised by trans athletes, and liberals who went from supporting cis-women's leagues to dogpiling women who dare to suggest that trans athletes might have an unfair biological advantage. We could have, and have had, more nuanced discussions about both the January 6th and BLM riots - although I admit that I was disheartened by them at the time, at least they were better than this.
This is what the community has come to - low effort, inflammatory posts bashing left wing topics du jour with minimal evidence receiving virtually no pushback or rebuttals. And frankly, most posts along these lines aren't even worth engaging with.
*For the record - prison rape and poor prison conditions are bad, and neither the J6 or BLM rioters should be raped, starved or otherwise abused.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
4mo ago
I haven't read much about the code of conduct in particular, just that there is one, but in general I think it's a cudgel to be used against the conservative justices, because that's how its implementation has been characterized.
You don't explicitly lay out how a code of conduct that applies to everyone equally is biased against Conservative justices. Is it because you think conservative media outlets are incapable of doing investigative journalism? That only Conservative justices are likely to violate said code of conduct? That everyone is corrupt, but the public/congress will selectively pressure corrupt Conservative justices?
If it came out that, say, Soros was buying houses and fancy vacations for some of the liberal justices I'd anticipate Fox News, talk radio and the Matt Gaetz' of the world would convulse in a collective orgasm and talk about it nonstop for the next three months. Do you disagree?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
but when have I ever expressed anything positive about eugenics?
I was trying to head off anyone who might be upset about X so we could focus on what I think is salient for the discussion. I don't know what your views on eugenics are, but my base assumption is that most people here believe in HBD and most of those people support some form of eugenics.
Are you an anarchist?
Nope. I'm just here for the music.
If not, can you explain to me how to lay out a positive vision for a society without resorting to any social control?
I'd suggest you go on the internet, join a community (it could even be this one!) and just write. Try and convince your fellow (wo)man of your vision for the world without being a hater. You could also start a substack, write op-eds for legacy media, be one of those youtube influencers, talk to people in meatspace. Tell me about your tradwife utopia in good faith, how you want to get there, and engage in a respectful dialogue.
I've seen this "you guys don't have a positive vision at all, you're just reacting to our glorious progressive revolution" going around, but I don't get how you can say it with a straight face. Remind me again who came up with the whole concept of "deconstruction" and was madly applying it to every positively created social institution we had over the past 50 years?
'No u' isn't a particularly convincing rebuttal. Moreover, it papers over the fact that your specific contribution is at least 90% complaining about 'bad thing my outgroup did this week.' Your idea of a palate cleanser, because the previous conversation was too toxic, is 'look at these gay fucks trying to be happy in a way I dislike. Major Cthulhu/body horror vibes here guys amirite?'
But alright. Come on, arjin. Whip out that meaty, utopian vision of yours and slap my dirty deconstructionist face with it. I'm ready for it.
I know you noticed, and I know it surprised you, so why didn't you stop and reassess your view of us, and the implications of our beliefs, when you saw that the people actually expressing any kind of discomfort with the whole Katja Grace thread were Dase, Hlynka, FCfromSSC, SouthKraut, and me?
Because you turn around and write the exact same thing as yesterday about a different group and are somehow blind to the fact that you're doing it! It's frankly hilarious that you think you're somehow morally superior to the trolls who were shitting on Katja for trying to be happy yesterday, even as you're turning around to shit on gay people trying to be happy today!
It doesn't surprise me at all that there's discord between the Rights who are sympathetic to rationalists and the Rights who aren't, and of course there are plenty of people here who I believe do have good moral character. In fact, I believe most people here probably are perfectly fine (almost certainly far above the median) in real life. The beliefs expressed here are just a small facet of everyone's personality.
But man, they do suck sometimes.
You didn't even say a bloody thing yourself, until you saw Dase speak up!
Why don't you, @aqouta and gattsuru get together and tell me when and what I'm allowed to write and get back to me. You complain if I say something, complain if I don't and I'm pretty sure the actual operative principle here is that you just don't like what I say.
Oh god, why am I the only one that has to answer reductio ad absurdums around here?
Because you carelessly toss bombs like:
Accept the limits of your biology, and move on...Given the utter dominance of the trans ideology, the vindication of the slippery slope argument, and the extrapolated trajectory of these ideas, I believe we have no other choice - Transhumanism must be destroyed!
without making an argument beyond gay people trying to have children is icky, transhumanists are icky, transhumanists must be destroyed! Which leads 'accept the limits of your biology and move on' to be the closest thing to a principle I can distill from your post. Okay...can you elaborate on how I should apply that principle to the rest of my life? Or if that's not your actual principle, what is?
You don't like exploiting third world women? How about brain dead surrogates? They can't get any more disempowered than they already are. Please you give me the positive principle
Brain-dead surrogates don't bother me any more than organ donation does. Put another box to tick next to the organ donation one for womb donation and problem solved. But moving on:
I don't have any objection to a woman choosing to use her body as a surrogate. I get uncomfortable when a woman is forced to choose between abject poverty, slightly less abject poverty flipping burgers or being a piece of womb-meat for ivy-league educated Chad and Jake who live across town. Even more uncomfortable when the woman is in the third world and faces even worse choices. We don't allow pharma companies to entice homeless people into super risky clinical trials with million dollar payouts, and I think the same principle applies here. On the flip side, we also need to incentivize people to work, so the economic carrots need to have at least some bite.
So...maybe utopia is some form of UBI that allows basic needs to be met while still allowing incentives for people to work if they can? Followed by a world where we could grow babies on command without physically incapacitating women for 9 months? Followed by a range of worlds enabled by speculative technology I can't imagine at the moment. I suppose if you boiled it down to principles, bodily autonomy, consent, general freedom in how you decide to pursue happiness balanced with the Greater Good? And, dare I say it, intersectional analysis when it comes to the dynamics between surrogates and couples trying to impregnate them?
Alright, now how about you tell me your vision?
stop this insanity
You want to stop the insanity? Stop being a hater on the internet. Politely tell other people to stop being haters on the internet. Go grill some burgers.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
Come on man, as an argument, this is "Nuh-UH" and "No U". If the left manages to lose whatever cosmic thing you think they're winning, it will be because they followed policies informed by arguments as shallow and pathetic as this.
I'm skeptical I could make any argument along these lines that would impress you. I'm doubtful that my comments that are critical of the left or wokeness are any more incisive or insightful, but they never draw the same accusations, so /shrug. Most top level posts are naked culture warring cutting the other way that again, never draw this objection. To some extent accusations of being a shallow culture warrior is just table stakes for participating in this community regardless of how careful I am. If I truly took all Your (not you personally, the royal You) criticism to heart I would never say anything, and indeed, I delete half my abortive comments without them seeing the light of day. Maybe you'd like that better. I suppose if I got enough replies like yours I'd stop writing long before I became Darwin 2.0, but at least some people seem to find the discussion useful.
Anyways - many of you are taking this as some value judgment. That I'm trying to say 'This is why I'm a blue blooded Democrat damnit, because those dumb-dumb Republicans can't come up with a vision beyond robbing the poor and cutting taxes on the 1%.' Rather, I'm trying to make an argument along these lines although no doubt much less skillfully. I'm also trying to leave an opening for people to tell me I'm misunderstanding the problem, that this is the vision being articulated by so-and-so and I've just never encountered it, or that I'm typical-minding half the country who don't respond to the same incentives I do. I've gotten precious little of the former, maybe half the replies are the latter, and half the comments make me think I'm right and reinforce my belief.
All I can offer is to do my utmost to give your perspective a fair shake.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
Violent nutjobs have gone after whoever they hated most - not infrequently, gays among others - since long before groomer discourse was a thing. You trying to hang this on anyone who ever complained about Drag Queen Story Hour is honestly kind of repulsive. As is trying to spin something out of "His grandfather is a Republican."
And you're not engaging with anything near a steelman of the argument he made. Painting relatively benign opponents as fascist white supremacists is not particularly productive, nor is it particularly controversial in these spaces that this kind of speech is dangerous. People don't like Arthur Chu talking about putting bullets in tumorous nazi Republican flesh or whatever that quote was. Seems fair to me that PM doesn't appreciate being called a groomer pedophile out to rape your kids, no?
Let's assume Aldrich was persuaded by LibsOfTikTok that we must stop the gays from grooming our children by any means necessary. It's still very unlikely that this otherwise stable and non-violent individual was just going to live a peaceful life until Twitter and grandpa told him about the "groomers."
Bad things happen. Bad people do bad things. We will always have bad people doing bad things. Therefore, why bother?
I hear this logic hasn't worked so well with defunding the police, and that actually, there are people who respond to incentives and the environment they live in. Seems pretty reasonable to me that there people out there who may not have been stable, peaceful individuals that nevertheless wouldn't have become mass shooters if it weren't for the toxic political waters we swim in.
I expect to see "If you say (fairly mainstream thing) you are Literally Killing People" on Twitter, but you offering it unironically here is crap argumentation.
It probably wasn't framed in an ideal way, nor does putting it in the context of his previous posts paint a very flattering picture, but...I think his point about not calling your fellow citizens pedophile groomers is valid? If you don't want to engage with it, you don't need to try and reduce it to puerile twitter one-liners.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
28d ago
When the government takes half your paycheck and gives it to a swarm of party-aligned parasites that live off grant money, the government is denying you agency.
Hey man, I don't like that the government is subsidizing traditionally red tribe occupations either, but you should really pressure your elected officials if you want it to stop.
Not to mention the income tax rate tops out at 37%, so it's not half your paycheck, and even if you are in the top tax bracket...you really don't have anything to be complaining about because you're making over half a mil per year.
When politicians coordinate with megacorporations to enrich themselves by impoverishing american workers, they are denying you agency.
Based. How do you want to bust the megacorps, comrade?
When your child isn't allowed to take algebra in school because a leftist "education consultant" got paid $5000/hr to call math racist while sending her children to a private school, they are denying you agency.
That's an impressive 10,000,000$ per year. Do you have any idea how I could become an education consultant?
Anyways, I'll ask you the same question as last time. I largely agree with you about the problems in the country. Do you have any realistic, well-thought out plans to address them? We could zero out budgets for all the education consultants, all the minority-owned business subsidies, most of the other stuff you complain about as woke, and your buddy would still be struggling to feed his family stocking shelves. If you want to cut taxes, we probably need to cut medicare and social security (I'm assuming you don't want to touch the military), so your shelf-stocking friend will age into being a senior who both can't afford healthcare and has to keep stocking shelves until he keels over and dies.
But seriously, I'm listening. I'm open to having my mind changed. What do you actually want? What's your positive vision for the future?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
2mo ago
Boston isn’t a shithole; Back Bay is probably second only to Greenwich Village / Lower Manhattan in terms of quality walkable neighborhoods in the US.
You literally said:
The financial district seemed fine enough, and in general the hobo problem, while worse than Manhattan, was no worse than Boston was late last year, and I thought Boston was still liveable, probably.
So Boston is only 'probably livable' and equivalent to San Francisco, in your eyes. You said this about San Francisco:
Not that it wasn't a dump, because it was, but it didn't really appear worse than it was before 2020. SF was (laughably) considered a "Tier 1" city (and had a weirdly cheap Four Seasons), so I stayed in the FS by Union Square, famous for shithole status and close proximity to the Tenderloin.
So you say San Francisco is a dump (and by extension, Boston is the same). I assume now you'll try and wriggle out of having used the word shithole by saying you were only talking about Union Square, so whatever.
I was willing to suspend disbelief, never having been to Seattle or Portland myself. But when you start going off on cities I've lived in and indeed bike commute through everyday and call them 'barely livable' I know you're either so snobbish and rich as to be out of touch with the reality the rest of us live in or playing it up to try and make an argument about how we're all ugly people leaving in ugly cities. Granted, I'm not a (presumably) 5 foot something Jewish woman but I can't deny what my lying eyes see every day.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
4mo ago
I thought I was clear
I'm sure you do.
the only reason anyone cares about a code of ethics is because of politicized reporting smearing conservative justices. Therefore, the code of ethics itself is but a cudgel to be used against said justices.
And the only reason we care about the Hatch act is that we might someday use it to coerce conservative congress members to resign. Just look at George Santos! We should probably do away with ethics rules in the House. No doubt the IRS is just going to be used to go after conservatives citizens, so we probably ought to dissolve that. The printing press has just been used as a cudgel against conservatives since the 16th century, and the rule of law has fucked conservatives since Hammurabi so we should probably do away with those as well.
I guess the cops are okay. They probably won't go after conservatives.
What you're being unclear about is any kind of broader position beyond being salty that a conservative justice is catching heat for something that, were the shoe on the other foot, you'd be just as happy to complain about. Are you just against any kind of neutral rules so long as what you think of as a biased media could leverage it against a prominent conservative? Are you specifically against any kind of code of ethics for the Supreme court, and if so, how is that different from any other example of ethics/rules that (at least on paper) apply equally to everyone? Is there some kind of underlying principle, or again, are you just salty that your ox got gored?
Yeah, but it won't come out, because that's not the media landscape that exists in reality. In reality, the Hunter Biden laptop full of incriminating evidence is pre-bunked as a non-story and literally every single major media enterprise gets with the program in lockstep fashion.
You say it wouldn't come out, and then give an example that...everyone knows about. The Hunter Biden laptop story was happily trumpeted through conservative talk radio, breitbart, Fox news, boomer facebook and wherever else conservatives get their news. It was broadly discussed in the NYT and plenty of other mainstream outlets as well.
No major media would cover it seriously, instead the story would be how Republicans are melting down over racist conspiracy theories.
Fox News, literally the most-watched news channel would cover it. As would conservative talk radio, which is how Trump supporters get their news. Randos in rural Idaho aren't getting the Times delivered to their doorsteps.
Walter Cronkite
Who's that, like, a tiktok influencer?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
8mo ago
If you'll forgive the blatant whataboutism (though given that I'm swimming in whataboutisms it seems like that's just the way the game is played 'round here these days), do you feel the same way about Kushner taking 2 billion dollars from Saudi Arabia months after playing a major role managing US relations in the middle east in Trump's white house?
Joe Biden's net worth is something like 9 million dollars. His tax filings are public. He isn't taking millions of dollars worth of bribes from foreign officials. At best you could argue that Hunter Biden (net worth 250 mil) is doing the dirty work of selling influence on Biden senior's policy choices, as others have in this thread, although that doesn't square very well with the '10 held by H for the big guy' narrative.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
5d ago
Permananned for being naughty while arguing with the HBD people.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
9d ago
If it wasn't Putin, any other Russian leader would be beset with the same scenario and conditions.
If it wasn't Zelensky, any other Ukrainian leader would be beset with the same scenario and conditions.
If it wasn't Biden, any other American leader would be beset by the same scenario and conditions.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
28d ago
So let's build a wall says the right-winger.
No you can't do that says the left-winger, you just can't. You really can't says the left-winger, so the right-winger says, ok we'll jan6 then
You mean the wall I was promised Mexico would pay for (oops), the wall that was actually built by Trump after refusing compromises offered by Democrats and instead built by appropriating funds from the military? The wall that, as far as I can tell, has had virtually no effect on the number of illegal immigrants showing up at the border? That wall?
Leaving aside the fact that your implied definition of 'having agency' means 'getting whatever policy you want at the federal level.' By that definition, you're denying me agency every time you vote for a Republican. Nobody has agency.
So let's gather all the gang-members says the El Salvadoran President. But at what cost??? Asks the NYT.
Sure, we could crack down on crime in the US as well if we instituted a police state. This is diametrically opposed to what most conservatives want. When is the last time you saw a conservative cheering on NSA wiretappings or the FBI?
How's 'relocating' working as a strategy generally? Plenty of 'relocated' Americans homeless on the streets of blue cities, not sure what good it does them.
You do understand that homeless make up a minute portion of a state's population (~90k for New York out of a population of 19 million), and the number of them that were shipped there from red states is a fraction of them? Meanwhile, there are plenty of kids who leave West Virginia for college, work, etc and never come back - and they do just fine. People typically refer to this as a negative as the talented are leaving West Virginia, exacerbating the problem. Any hard data on the subject would suffer from selection effects as well, so maybe it isn't a solution for someone with a high school degree or less, who knows.
Doesn't really matter though. You seem more interested in 'zingers' and waging the culture war, right?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
4mo ago
The daycare situation is a perfect example of what is wrong with Canada.
What system are you contrasting it with, the United States? I'm curious if you know what the situation there is like.
Sure, the supply is (mostly) there. In my corner of the US, I was on waitlists at somewhere between a half dozen and a dozen places and I started inquiring about 8 months before I'd need it. I was offered a spot at maybe three of them, and two were larger corporate style ones that were significantly more expensive. So definitely not close to Quebec tier where people wait years, but it's still non-trivial to find a spot.
Meanwhile, the prices per month that were quoted to me are 2500$-4000$. On the one hand, it's great that labor women have been doing forever is finally recognized as being valuable - a modern SAH parent of two is essentially providing labor worth ~70k per year. On the flip side, small comfort to the laborer making 50-75k a year and trying to raise a family who would probably appreciate Canadian daycare prices (if they could get them).
Similarly, you could make a parallel argument to the one that you made in your OP that the public Canadian healthcare system incentivizes risky behavior and overconsumption of resources because what the heck, it's free. And yet, somehow Canadians have longer life expectancies. People broadly agree that the American healthcare system is broken, although it seems likely to me that there are just different tradeoffs.
All this to say that most (all?) Western nations struggle with the things you describe. Or if they don't, I'd be fascinated to hear your counterexample of a developed nation with a functioning and cheap childcare system as well as an explanation of how they achieved it. Someone smarter than me will have to explain why this is the case; I'd assume much higher labor costs/CoL in general and higher standards. Modern daycares are strictly regulated in terms of capacity (teacher/child ratio) and safety whereas in the past (I assume) we just had gaggles of near-feral children roaming the streets.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
4mo ago
No, there is a code of conduct. A conservative judge could have an absolutely egregious conflict of interest and fox news, conservative talk radio and boomer facebook would carry water for them.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
8mo ago
Sure, and how many articles have CNN, MSNBC, Et Al written about Trump?
That might be relevant if I had been complaining about the latest Hunter Biden hearing being planned to distract from a damaging Trump story. Moreover, Trump was a sitting president while Hunter Biden is the son of one, so a better analogy would be Jared Kushner.
The crux of the issue is that the DNC has explicitly rejected the principle of equality before the law in favor of "rules for thee and not for me" and I don't think they realize just how dangerous a game they are playing.
The crux of the issue is that Trump pushed the envelope on all of those issues farther than any of the examples you gave. Clinton conceded the election peacefully the morning after:
“Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country,” Clinton said. “I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans. This is not the outcome that we wanted or worked so hard for, and I’m sorry that we did not win this election…. But I feel pride and gratitude for this wonderful campaign that we built together. This vast, diverse, creative, unruly and energized campaign. You represent the best of America, and being your candidate has been one of the greatest honors of my life.” Fighting back tears at times, Clinton acknowledged the crowd’s disappointment, saying she — “and tens of millions of Americans” — felt it, too. “This is painful, and it will be for a long time,” Clinton said. “We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought. But I still believe in America, and I always will.”
I'm still unaware of any concrete evidence that Joe pushed policy X or Y as a party to foreign influence either to enrich his family or otherwise. The closest I've seen has been pushing for the resignation of the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma, but a Republican-controlled senate investigation apparently turned up nothing years ago. While Hunter apparently illegally bought a gun, smoked a lot of crack, fucked a lot of hookers and enriched himself on his father's name it's still not clear to me how Biden harmed the interests of the United States to rake in the corruption money.
There's probably no point rehashing similar arguments from the other side; Jared Kushner receiving 2 billion from the Saudis after being staunchly pro-Saudi Arabia while directly serving in Trump's white house, Trump delaying hundreds of millions of aid to Ukraine while pressuring Zelenskyy to investigate the Biden's, so on and so forth.
I'm out of time, so you'll undoubtedly be devastated that we don't get to rehash the Clinton email saga again although I'll admit you're maybe closest to the mark here given that, if I remember correctly, she instructed her lawyer to destroy evidence.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
There is a fundamental difference between being stuck with a fucked system that no one actually knows how to improve
Really? Nobody on the left has suggested any improvements for the American carceral system, nor have they been extolling the virtues of European systems for years now? Issues like forced labor, chronic understaffing, murder and rape1 2 and so on and so forth are rampant. The first time I've seen anyone on the right express any kind of sympathy for the plight of prisoners was the J6 rioters.
Would you disagree with that characterization? Are there communities of conservatives decrying prison conditions that I'm unaware of?
...Put it this way: your best defense is that there might be a net-reduction in rape, because transgenders and transtrenders together have such high rape numbers. If it turned out to be the other way around, and this was just a straight increase in rape, would you agree it's a bad idea?
The thrust of my argument is that I don't trust any of you on this topic because I think you're motivated more by anti-trans animus than compassion. You can't spend days talking about how trans people are ugly, disgusting, mentally ill freaks and then turn around and expect me to believe that You (the right) care for their wellbeing, just like You can't say things like FAFO/carjackers and rioters should be shot/prisoners experiencing rape and violence deserve it and claim some moral high ground. And so far, while all the replies reiterate feeling gaslit and frustration about being told that this would never happen, nobody has actually responded to that point.
...Put it this way: your best defense
You're acting like I'm dead set on allowing anyone into female prisons at any time for any reason. I don't personally have a well-thought out opinion on the issue; probably some screening based on whether they were living as trans outside of prison prior to arrest would be useful if messy. But even there, I strongly suspect the real reason most of you want that is to get a foot in the door for limiting the rights of trans people such that in the future you can say 'Well, look at the example of prisons! If you've already accepted these limitations on trans identity, why should I be barred from doing X?'
is that there might be a net-reduction in rape, because transgenders and transtrenders together have such high rape numbers. If it turned out to be the other way around, and this was just a straight increase in rape, would you agree it's a bad idea?
If you're appealing to my inner utilitarian. There's also an argument that the majority of trans people are malicious actors and should shoulder a higher burden of the externalities (OP's usual favorite hobby horse), but I've yet to see evidence of it.
And lastly, as I state above, I'd accept that you could probably do better than either with some very forgiving screening or a much smaller third set of institutions for trans people if you could get it past the 'trans women are women' crowd.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
4mo ago
I can well believe that Canada decided to subsidize shitty behavior by taxing good behavior. This question is more out of curiosity than a challenge- how exactly did Canada do this in a more egregious manner than other first world countries with their eg single motherhood benefits.
Are you confident that other countries without those single motherhood benefits, such as the US, have lower rates of single motherhood than Canada? Because I don't think that's true even controlling for race. I'm sure cheaper daycare has an effect on the margin, but I'm skeptical that if Canada elected a clean Conservative slate and abolished the entirety of their welfare system that all the problems OP gestures at would evaporate. Even leaving aside the new problems generated as a consequence.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
4mo ago
I’ll vote for Trump next November, but only because I personally dislike a lot of influential progressives and will enjoy the crying and wailing on social media if he wins (and perhaps in the faintest, 5% chance he might do something about immigration).
Setting aside the 'own the libs' part, you've got a better chance of immigration reform under Biden or his successor. Trump being Trump (or the media being the media, depending on your perspective), will inevitably make immigration reform so toxic that no democratic politician could support any proposal he makes without getting absolutely shredded by their base.
Consider that in writing mindkilled screeds about how terrible everything is, you're probably part of the problem. Maybe engage in a bit of self-reflection. Consider compromise. Read the aspirational text at the top of the culture war thread. Do something that makes you happy. Touch grass?
More realistically, Trump gets elected, Republicans suddenly stop caring about deficit spending and cut taxes and voila - all of your problems are magically solved. Instead of crying about how bad everything is you'll be crowing about the liberal snowflakes losing their minds over Orange Man Bad and TDS.
I used to. When the people like you were diluted by those who were well-meaning, who wanted to have actual conversations and maybe learn a thing or two from someone with a different perspective.
How about this? If you can manage to write a measured and polite post about any of the topics above, I'll respond in kind. If the though of trying to do that is so abhorrent, then maybe this isn't the place for you.
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