EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
I know what you're here for. What's his bias? Politically I at least like to think of myself as a true moderate, maybe (in US context) slightly naturally right-leaning but currently politically left-leaning if I had to be more specific.
User ID: 1043
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Look, I don’t know about inner circles or whatever, but on a practical basis if China had control over TikTok then if war ever actually was threatened (eg Taiwan, and I’m a doomer there) TikTok would become overnight one of the single most powerful and effective propaganda weapons ever known. Yes, it’s a national security threat. At the very least if the algorithm is in Oracle’s hands, it’s a lot easier for the US to take further steps if, for example, Israel actually became an opponent or whatever.
True, but our belief in a single authorized baptism is also accompanied by a belief that said baptism can be accepted even after death, so it’s not exclusionary as a complete package! And you really do need to include both, seems to me. It’s not as if this is the only very significant theological difference among Christian sects.
Well, qualified in one respect. It’s not as if we think that God ignores the prayers or genuine authentic intentions toward God of others. Functionally someone who confesses a sin to a Catholic priest, exercises faith in Christ, repents of their ways, is essentially forgiven (or will be) - just the priest didn’t actually serve an official role in it. So I guess I still don’t quite see it. Perhaps similar to how many Christian sects have walked back beliefs that the unbaptized can literally never enter heaven and won’t get a chance to, Mormons have also toned back the emphasis on how other sects are all extremely misled people. Early LDS history, (in)famously, was not quite the same - many especially older Mormons even thought of the Catholic Church as a somewhat devilish deception. So in that sense there’s an argument to be made that this distinction is no longer as true as it used to be.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Not Tenaz but my take, and I think you even concede this at one point, is that the word Christian itself is best understood as a perspective looking from the outside, not an inward one of self-identity. A Muslim or atheist will feel labeling Christians as such quite natural, because the doctrine emphasizes, well, Christ. I feel even better about this definition because it’s the one the Bible itself uses! At least initially. Note Acts 11, the first usage, is strongly implied to be a moniker given by the crowds to these new-breed not-quite-Jews, and even predates the official expansion to Gentiles.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I think it’s more accurate that we think of God the Father as… a father. Parents want their children, broadly, to grow up and become good people and raise their own families. Why would our Father be any different? Partly why our doctrine so highly emphasizes family, while some Christians even believe that all family bonds are meaningless and dissolved upon death. Thus “growing up” is not disrespect to a father, and it also doesn’t dissolve those relationships, so the idea of being Jesus’ equal still feels sacrilegious to most Mormons, even if the doctrine implies something of the sort (and there are plenty of doctrinal implications, but not as much hard official doctrine, so that’s all they usually are, at the end of the day all Christians can but speculate about certain aspects of heaven and eternal life).
I’m trying (was trying?) really hard not to explicitly litigate the Christian point unless someone wants me to, but I do want to register that part of the Mormon dissatisfaction with your reading of the situation is that while any Mormon will freely concede the first point about the Trinity beliefs being decently different, the point about seeing Jesus as insufficiently divine is seen as rooted in a false and/or bigoted understanding of our doctrine. As a trivial example, we believe Jesus to be Jehovah of the Old Testament. So while we might call ourselves, I dunno, 80% the same about Jesus’ role and identity, maybe higher, others seem to feel that the figure is something like 10% - which, wherever you put the actual figure, it’s definitely not there. As a matter of “general religion”, viewed broadly, we LDS consider Jesus’ atonement and assumption of our sins an absolute and pivotal requirement to get to “heaven” and in fact to avoid eternal death. Sure there are some divergent ideas about what heaven looks like but isn’t that a bit… academic? Especially when traditional Judaism doesn’t even stress a concept of Heaven and Muslims specifically reject Jesus as having a special role altogether, so when people lump us in with them it feels even more strange and absurd. And even more so when you consider that the internal model one has of the true nature of God debate has, in practical terms, almost zero outward manifestation. We even use the same key phrase that Catholics and many other Christian churches require to mutually recognize baptism. And it’s not like if you talk to a regular Christian about the nature of God, they won’t say something that violates the Nicene Creed is a not insignificant number of cases in pretty short order.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
As a Mormon, I have access to the Mormon rumor-news network via my mother, which can confirm that the Robinsons are Mormon - it’s been a bit so can’t remember specifics but the guys who talked him down from suicide and into turning him in? His home ward bishop (volunteer pastor-ish), and due to worries about being treated roughly or poorly if he just confessed to random cops, I believe it was a former young men’s leader who was a part time sheriff or something along those lines that used his connections to make him turning himself in discreet.
Regarding anti-Mormon sentiment (violence is rare), I will say that despite us being quite long-suffering, we still might be at least the third most badmouthed religion in America after maybe Jews and Muslims - yet receiving the least popular protection. Just this very week, BYU played Colorado and sure enough the student section had some “Fuck the Mormons” chants. Can you imagine the media shitstorm if people chanted that against Jews, Muslims, or heck even Baptists? But nope, it’s the Mormons, no one cares. It’s a double standard. Nothing new for us of course. The leader of the church who passed away also this last week at 101 (a pioneering heart surgeon on the bleeding edge of open heart surgery in the 50s and 60s, on the team that developed the heart lung machine, who brought open heart surgery to Utah as only the third state with such abilities, and more) spent a lot of time talking about being peacemakers, especially in private life, an approach diametrically opposed to that of many other right wing religious ecosystems and also the growing chorus of advocates for political vengeance (though admittedly general politics does not always dovetail with private politics). At any rate, it’s heartbreaking that the people first shot were literally people going to assist someone they almost certainly assumed had crashed their truck in an accident, and that said attack put a child as young as 6 iirc in the hospital.
If anything can be said about cultural and political significance from this shooting and its aftermath, it’s that the right is not immune to the fact that all victims are not created equal. While many right wing commentators will loudly point out that leftists tend to be bothered more by certain idpol crimes than others, lo and behold rightists are also bothered more by certain idpol crimes than others. Yes the Kirk shooting had more explicitly political implications but there is an unmistakable relative silence here. As just one example, I looked up the first MAGA type Senator that came to mind: Josh Hawley. Not even a tweet about it. Yet yesterday, we do get another tweet about Kirk, and not even a banal one: “Charlie Kirk would debate anybody and do it cheerfully. That’s what we do as Americans. Meanwhile, Democrats’ insane rhetoric is causing deranged people to commit deranged crimes. It needs to end”. The Bible thumping Christian Senator from, okay yes, Missouri, doesn’t care. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville posted single tweets without using the C word of course. Ted Cruz? Not a peep - but four tweets today about murders in DC!
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Perhaps the buried lede is that Egypt wants to do it themselves but don’t currently have the technical chops or funding to pull it off - especially if it would require pumping out water without making the whole thing collapse?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I’d say civil indoctrination isn’t wildly effective but it does provide a decent “anchoring” effect, where kids assume it as a baseline truth and adjust from there, rather than a first exposure be TikTok.
Also the point about mandatory service seems strange since many countries do it, and it doesn’t seem to have the same claimed impact. If anything, it often permanently disillusions young men who are experience a lot of the “sitting around bored” aspect, and witness corruption firsthand, at least in cases like Taiwan and South Korea. I assume you could figure out a better donated labor system - the Inca would have people build roads or otherwise build stuff in addition to military service and it worked well - but that would be a pretty broad change and difficult to implement well.
Outside of a major economic collapse, that is.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
It’s a relevant fact. Not to ICE, you’re right that they like police often toss prejudicial technically-facts in press releases all the time. But to the district, because it’s against policy to carry guns onto school properties there, so if those are regularly in his car they are regularly showing up at schools. (Now do I care actually, and is that a good policy? Not actually sure.)
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
In theory yes, in practice nearly every superintendent wants to make their “impact” and so tosses any program affiliated with a predecessor and replaces it with their own shiny new toy that they obligate teachers to drop everything and follow. And yes, it’s horribly inefficient.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
In a just world we would have passed legislation allowing prosocial and well behaved people the chance to make their decades-long participation in the country’s social and economic fabric official. Maybe tax them higher for a while as a sort of restitution or something.
We do not have such laws as far as I can tell. So in the absence of such, I see no fundamental issue with deporting him, even if it’s morally mean and probably counterproductive. I also don’t begrudge people mad about it, you know, unjust laws exist and objecting to those is normal political discourse, though this concept is on a sliding scale. Does the lack of a just law “fixing” an unjust situation have equal impact as a literal on the books unjust law? Can we allow characterization of an otherwise just law as unjust by virtue of ‘external’ flaws alone? Those questions aside, in that light some conservatives rub me the wrong way when they insist that it’s a clinical issue with correct and incorrect answers, and ‘why could liberals possibly be so mad’ is a dumb thing to wonder.
I do often wonder about what it must be like to live for decades presumably looking over your shoulder. I once drove with expired plates for nearly a year (insurance was current though) and I was constantly a little bit on edge every time I saw a cop car, and then some. Not fun, a little tiring. To do the same for decades? I guess if enforcement is spotty maybe you just forget - perhaps it was only a year or so of this (since the deportation order).
Possibly unrelated: I have no issue working for even big defense contractors, generally speaking, although a few friends and two siblings might disapprove some. But ICE? Personally I find the idea of working for them right now morally repugnant. That’s not to say ICE shouldn’t exist or anything, but my conscience simply would not allow it.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Stop saying “I don’t know that they committed in advance to a Black woman”. This is factually wrong. Biden did not. Pointing to being aware of her being Black after the fact is backwards logic.
“They” did not pick her either. This is also wrong. Picking a VP (for the 2020 campaign) is one of the few decisions that voters and party insiders have remarkably little influence in. Yes, they sometimes run little low key pressure campaigns, but ultimately it’s an individual and personal decision. There’s no election. The nominee picks someone, and the party sucks it up. At least this started to be the case especially after 1944 when FDR rejected the party choice, and this solidified in the two decades or so after. In one single case way back in 1972, McGovern’s pick was partially forced out because he had undergone electroshock therapy so there was concern about fitness. That’s it. That’s the whole modern history. Otherwise it’s a rubber stamp.
Regarding the Biden dropout, an event you seem to unnecessarily conflate, Biden could endorse someone, or he could call for a mini primary. Most people seem to agree those were his only two options, and endorsing anyone other than Kamala was basically unthinkable (as I’ve argued on more than a merely idpol basis), so it’s at most three options: endorse Harris, call for primary while pushing Harris, and call for primary while sitting it out. Remember that as sitting president, guy with his name on the PACs and war chests, and effectively party leader, Biden did have the leverage to enforce his decision on a practical basis.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I meant it more in the sense that treating them older (or giving the appearance of it) works, so her failure to even try painfully indicates how little she’s been around children.
More largely, you’re correct. It drives me crazy for example when talking about the book wars in public schools how few people seem to truly grasp that there are some concepts that children at particular ages are almost physically incapable or grasping. Age appropriateness is not purely about, like, not showing them naked people or swearing, it’s about what types of ideas are presented and at what pace.
So I guess it’s possible I was too harsh, but it feels like a politician usually takes pains to figure out what “works” in communication, so it’s still strange to see a politician failing so badly and in such a sustained fashion.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Much as that might fit with your worldview, she’s a lawyer. She’s 100% going to be picky about the precise language in a few places. I think it’s true for some political books but nearly zero chance it’s the case here. And despite this particular excerpt, the book is allegedly supremely careful. Doesn’t say nearly anything of true substance about Biden, Gaza, her vision, etc.
Different vibe, but Madeline Albright introducing Clinton at a campaign event with "There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!" was also pretty disastrous, the less talked-about cousin to "basket of deplorables" in my eyes. It wasn't limited to single demographics, so hit broader.
I actually think the worst part of that ad (other than the bits that sound like an SNL skit) was casting a fat guy in a "I'm a man" ad, so it doesn't even work. Literally no man ever considers being that overweight to be particularly manly. If you're gonna pick a big dude, you have to pick at least a dude who has some muscles underneath. No offense intended to anyone, of course, I'm just talking about what people want to see in ads - obviously we have different standards for those, it's quite literally marketing 101. The poses are all wrong too, the gaunt old guy is very out of left field, and there's no suburban dad anywhere here, poor usage of beard stubble, and just guys giving off super-single vibes. It's just incompetent, holy yikes, even on top of the content.
Personally I think putting out cringey content is not as bad as actively alienating people. The I'm a Man ad is desperate, not aggressively shaming.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I actually did get a really good laugh out of his most recent Trump parody, which makes me hate myself just a little bit for liking anything out of Newsom's stupid mouth, but yeah, it works.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
One of the comments: "Dear Lord she makes Hillary look sincere". Ouch. Gave me a laugh though. It's actually crazy that you get to be that age and you still genuinely think that deploying the voice normally used for 5-year-old kids on 11-ish-year-old kids (or somewhere in there, I dunno) is a good idea. No. It's a terrible idea. That's exactly the age where you use the adult voice, they freaking love it, it's not even hard.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Just to correct the record (reference not intended), Biden only committed to picking a woman, not necessarily a Black woman. Two of the four on the shortlist were white. I know it's a punchier line to say, but it's not true.
Beyond that, it's true that passing over Kamala as the replacement would be a bad look, but that would be (not equally, but mostly) also true even if she were not. Vice Presidents are quite literally successors. And Biden in particular had bad personal feelings about not getting Obama's full support in the primary for 2016, so it seems extra unlikely that Biden would actually backstab Kamala in the same way, even on just a purely personal level (even if he was tempted).
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I always felt, and said so loudly at the time, that just like you say if you're in a losing position you might as well try a trick play or a Hail Mary pass. It felt like an obvious mistake to bet on anti-Trump sentiment alone. Biden didn't beat Trump's re-election because he was someone other than Trump (or Clinton) - he won because people thought he seemed at least a halfway decent bet, even if nothing too special. The wrong lessons were learned... again. Crazy.
Pete did pretty decent at Surrounded even though that's not perfectly representative. The funny thing is, though, that his worst answers were always about something specific to Harris: 14:14, an undecided voter said that her debate performance was shit, and asked Pete about if her character is so good, why didn't it come through? 31:22ish, another one asked why Harris said something about censoring social media if it contained misinformation as an attack on free speech (although very, very interesting: Pete called the Trump TV license campaign trail threat out as not just a free speech threat but a real threat, not just a Trumpian bluff. This was 10 months ago; he was 100% correct). Still, Harris feels like a millstone around the campaign's neck in most of these questions, and that's not good considering she was the campaign.
And most painful, 37:17, a voter outright says it.
Why can't Kamala answer some of these questions that you're able to answer? ...Why? [most of the people in the circle start clapping] And it's an oversimplification of a concept, but I feel like when I listen to her, I don't get, it's almost jumping back to character. When you talk, back when you were running, I hear genuine interest and feelings in your voice, I know what you want and know that when you say something you really mean what you're saying. I don't ever really get that sense, there were some times in the debate with Kamala where I got a sense of that, but uh, since then, especially with some of the not so great - you know the town hall and the CNN stuff... I don't know. I dunno.
Damning. Pete responds with some (true) stuff about how, ok she's a sitting VP, she's paranoid about the media jumping on a gotcha line. Then he says, well, people have their strengths and weaknesses, and she'd be a good president - which is straight up conceding the point about her bad communication, if you look past the tact. But people can tell. That voter sure did. People just say these things, it's not like they hide it, the Harris campaign really should have known this was an issue. Anyways, I think Pete would do just fine on campaign if he's the one driving the bus, I think you're a little too down on the communication, even if it's not, admittedly, an effusive personal charm kind of thing. If there's one thing holding Pete back, it's probably that he feels the need to try and appease the Democrat sacred cow talking points at times, which would be less the case if you're behind the wheel.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I really want Pete to run, because he's clearly a smart guy - so I'm curious if we can finally prove that voters actually don't want someone too smart in the role (or plain don't like smart people). Cases like Al Gore and, hell, you know, even: Dukakis, Kerry, maybe Hillary, Gingrich, Romney, etc. Although Pete seems like he is slightly better at being relatable, he also has a kind of too-clean vibe that might make people unsettled. Voters actually do want a human-feeling flaw or two. The anti-intellectualism is a strong thesis but if Pete ran and lost I think I might finally be able to conclude that it's a rule, not just a trend.
In that sense, Vance vs Buttigieg would be extra fantastic TV. Would love to see that debate, actually.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Reading between the lines of the info and reporting we have, Biden did choose Kamala and felt pretty OK about it. He chose her because she convincingly assured him that she would stay loyal. And she basically did, to her and his 'credit'. That's on a personal level between Joe and Kamala. So in that respect I don't think that's right, he trusted her just fine. Was it enthusiasm? No. She wasn't a social friend, and I don't think ever became one, although I'm pretty sure at least some of the bigger decisions he let her in the room for.
However, and this is the huge caveat - Biden's staffers did not get converted to Kamala. I think it's even been explicitly reported that several of Biden's inner circle literally never forgave her for the bussing accusation during the primaries, implying that Biden was a segregationist sympathizer. So yes, on a lower level, her staff was often iced out, I think that's pretty clear. (It's also clear that her camp has always been chaotic, and although Biden's staff didn't ever push back on those allegations, unlike Kamala I don't think that was the Biden staffers' fault, just her own).
Vance? Well, for one, even though staffers are rarely super visible, Vance's keep pretty quiet as far as I know. I'm pretty clued in politically, and I can't even name one. While by contrast I can name drop Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita, Stephen Miller, and a few other close-orbit Trump team people easily (to be fair not all of them are attention-seekers, but there plenty of others who are). Looking at the list, most of them don't seem to be super frontline warriors, other than maybe his Senate buddies Mike Lee (ugh), Josh Hawley (ugh), and Tom Cotton. Plus, he adopted some Don Jr. people and so there's some bridges in place. And you know Trump is still absolutely glowing after Vance attacked Zelensky for disrespect a few months back on Trump's behalf.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
The more I think about it, the more I think you're right, no notes.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I wouldn't go quite so far as to call the actual Democratic position that a president is a figurehead only, Obama was quite muscular at times, but a generalized respect for process and credentials and expertise is certainly baked in to the pie in a way Republicans have never 100% believed, being slightly more individualistic where Democrats can be a little collectivist (within their subgroups at least - the party at large less so). The Republican version of expertise looks more like "good instincts" than it does "studied it for years", but they still do believe in expertise broadly speaking, just in a different form, and with fewer criteria. Think 'successful maverick CEO' as opposed to 'tenured PhD technocrat'. A CEO still needs to have a good business, but how they got there is less critical.
Trump thinks, and arguably always has if you look at his past, that it actually doesn't matter if you have a good business. People just need to think that you have a good business, and then they assume you have expertise to back it up. 80% of the result with 20% of the effort. Now that's business!
He projects this attitude on his subordinates. Some of them even believe it. You don't need to actually kick all illegals out of the country. You just need to be loud about it, and make liberals sufficiently apoplectic, and everyone will assume it's working. You don't need to actually find a cure for autism, you just need to say you did. You don't need to actually save the government money, you just need to drum up some exaggerated numbers and declare victory. Mission Accomplished. It's 1984-lite. And then the ultimate trick? If later it becomes evident the action wasn't real, fire someone, blame them, replace them, quickly distract the public with something else new and outrageous and ambitious-sounding and then you can even repeat the cycle later. In that sense, anyone other than him is replaceable, and Trump never has any motivation to actually grill a subordinate about their actual plan, because it doesn't matter. The goal is reputation, respect.
What's new about this? Internally, most presidents do actually grill their subordinates about their plans. I listened and read a number of the Nixon tapes, we can literally see the day to day stuff going on inside the White House. He's very regularly giving specific instructions to diplomats, maneuvering legislation, getting Vietnam updates. Trump? He watches TV. I'm really not joking, it's a common thread in virtually every account. If he sees TV complain about a policy, then he calls up a cabinet member and grills them - about the TV coverage. I happen to think that it's not only backwards, but historically unusual.
It’s a play for hearts and minds of current young Americans, and it’s probably working. Youth today probably don’t think of Saudi Arabia in the same breath as Iran, and that’s what they want.
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