FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
No bio...
User ID: 675
I don't recall whether you've laid out your political history in the past. Were you a blue, once upon a time? Did you have the experience of getting in a fight with other blues, and reaching for common ground and solidarity, only to have those appeals rejected out of hand because your refusal to get in line was considered proof that you were an ist or a phobe of some description? If you did, how did it incline you toward the people who treated you so?
Back in the day, before I made the decision to no longer have opinions on the subject, I lost count of the times I was called a nazi and an antisemite for arguing in favor of what appeared to me to be basic, foundational moral and legal values when it came to Israel's policies and the behavior of its agents. I stopped having those arguments, and indeed stopped consuming news about Israel or its various conflicts, because I realized I was becoming legitimately antisemitic through frustration and disgust with the behavior of my opposites and their coalition. And for what it's worth, with some years of remove, I can recognize that I bought into extremely foolish underdog narratives of the other side, and gave them a pass for their own crimes and atrocities because they were committed against the side I saw as more in the wrong. This was stupid, but it didn't spring from congenital hatred of Jews, it came from the observation of entrenched and fattened callousness and injustice. You might say I believed I was judging them by the content of their character.
Now, I no longer have an opinion on the subject. This statement is not a pose or a linguistic strategy; I do not want and will not allow myself to have an opinion, to root for a side. I have done my best to cauterize the portion of my brain previously dedicated to such concerns, and this is a policy I intend to maintain for the rest of my life. My conclusion is that the land is cursed, and people generally would be well-advised to live elsewhere.
That being said, as someone who has been through this from the opposite side and is watching the shifting sands of ideology, I think the sort of reflexive dismissal you and many others have deployed on this topic doesn't seem like it's working well long-term.
When considering the culture war as a whole, would you say that accusations of racism or sexism have generally been false?
And certainly there are a lot of American Jews who don't like Netanyahu or don't like various actions Israel has taken. There are very few who want Israel to cease to exist as a Jewish state.
Yes. This is my point. There are significant differences between "I don't like this" and "I think something should be done about this" and "I am willing to fight to see something done about this". With regard to the general Jewish population, negative attitudes toward Israel cluster around the first of these, and the last of these are very, very rare.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
24d ago
It is impossible to have a Jewish, democratic state in the territory currently controlled by Israel because that territory contains more Palestinians than non-Haredi Jews, and without a genocide (real or technical) is likely to continue to do so.
This is the sort of answer I would expect, yes.
Absolutely, and inside-the-Green-Line Israel was (and still is, in so far as it can be conceived of separately from the West Bank settlements).
How did that particular chunk of land get to be supermajority Jewish? If we handwave how it was established, what policies are acceptable in keeping it supermajority Jewish? If they build a wall and refuse all non-jewish immigrants, is that an acceptable policy just for them, or should other states be permitted to act in a similar way?
My point is obvious, I think; progressive values and principles are flatly incompatible with the function and form of Israel as a state, this incompatibility is severe enough that it probably cannot be maintained in the long term, and that this fact presents a serious dilemma to western Jewish people who have heretofore been closely aligned with progressive politics.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
24d ago
I wouldn't say the general Jewish population is as easy of a class to read here. Lots of individual Jews will have different opinions with different nuances. It might statistically skew one way or the other, but there will be important variance from one to another.
Lots of individuals having different opinions with different nuances is irrelevant, when the sum of those nuances skews heavily one way or the other. I'm reliably informed that ten Jewish people will hold eleven different positions on a topic, and yet our government consistently provides large-scale economic and military aid to Israel, provides Israel with powerful diplomatic cover, and even, in your assessment, fights wars on Israel's behalf, and it does not appear to me that the general jewish population is interested in seeing these policies change. It is evident to me that one of the strongest bulwarks against these policies changing has been accusations of antisemitism against those advocating such changes.
Antisemites is an easy class simply due to the category itself (when properly applied) inherently being people who would want the Jews to look bad and be hated.
From my perspective, the question is whether the category is properly applied, and what you intend to do if you find it is being misapplied. If you or your coalition could meaningfully police the application of the term to only those areas where it was appropriate, the problem could easily be solved. But the problem is that Antisemitism is, at its core, a term that the general jewish population owns, and to the extent that they in general disagree with you over where and when it should be applied, the sum of their opinions will be dispositive.
I disagree, even with the people who "support Israel as a state" lies a ton of different nuance. Heck, one of the most rabidly anti Israeli left wingers I know is an ethnic Jew himself. That's not very common, but this is the sort of thing I mean by not wanting to treat Jews as a "cohesive class".
In your view, what does the phrase "general [x] population" mean, and why do you use it if you believe that it can be overridden by anecdotal examples?
I often find that my ingroup contains infinite, fractal complexity when criticisms of its collective behavior are presented, so it seems we are as brothers in this matter. And yet, I also find that large-scale populations are capable of coordinated action in the pursuit of long-term goals. If I can engage productively with criticisms of Christians or Muslims, men or women, Blues or Reds, Boomers or "the kids today", it is not obvious to me why "the general jewish population" alone should be an amorphous enigma of which no concrete critique can be made, other than the observation that when such critiques are made, the person making them is inevitably labeled an antisemite.
And people can change their minds too so I'm not gonna write everyone off from their ethnicity. Hell even within Israel, some of the literal soldiers committing abuses have come to regret it.
I don't doubt that some of them have. I do doubt that the general jewish population is interested in bolstering that regret through actual policy consequences. I think many Israelis regretted their involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacres; I saw a movie they made about it once. And yet, I note that such regret did not result in legible justice toward those involved, and the commander who coordinated their involvement still got to be Prime Minister, and most of those who thought this was a bad thing did not, for example, think it was a bad enough thing to really do much about it.
It does not seem to me that these observations amount to "writing off people for their ethnicity"; no society is perfectly just, but some societies are trying for something I recognize as justice, and other societies are not. If you consider Israel an unjust society, what do you think should happen as a consequence? What do you think will happen as a consequence? What role do you expect the general Jewish population to play in the transition from ought to is?
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
25d ago
the "pistols" in question are essentially AKSU-style carbines with no stock installed. I'm given to understand they're fairly popular.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
25d ago
The strategy of both Israel and the actual antisemites has been the same here, to link Israel and the general Jewish population as inherently linked.
You've got two classes here: Anti-semites and Israelis, and you note that both of them want to link Israel to the general jewish population.
The general jewish population is also a class, no? What do they want with regard to the connection of Israel and themselves?
Only one-third of American Jews say they identify as Zionist, even as nearly nine in 10 say they support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and Democratic state, according to a new survey conducted by Jewish Federations of North America.
Do you, personally, believe that Israel has a right to exist as "a Jewish and Democratic state"?
Do you, personally, believe that a state can in practical terms be both "Jewish" and "Democratic" in the commonly-understood definitions of those terms? That is, assuming the general positive-valence progressive understanding of "Democracy" as a social system, do you think "Democracy" is broadly compatible with an explicit ethno-state?
Overall, more than 70% of Jewish adults who responded to JFNA’s survey agreed that “I feel emotionally attached to Israel,” and 60% said Israel made them proud to be Jewish. At the same time, nearly 70% also agreed that “I sometimes find it hard to support actions taken by Israel or its government.”
What are the bounds of discourse? It's pretty clear how much criticism of Israel is acceptable to Israel (little to none) and how much is acceptable to antisemites (almost all to all). I think it's pretty clear that the general jewish population likewise has something like coherent bounds on the amount of criticism of Israel they consider acceptable; are those bounds closer to the Israeli limits or the antisemite limits?
You appear to want to limit this discussion to Israel and the Antisemites, since both of these are your outgroup. But the general jewish population is a cohesive social cluster, and one that is not, to put it delicately, a complete stranger to the organization and exercise of political power. My observation is that the general jewish population is strongly supportive of Israel as a state, as they have been for decades. Criticism of specific actions of Israel or its agents does not change this fact.
I used to be very strongly pro-Israel. I went very strongly anti-Israel when I went blue. Now I am committed to, as best as I am able, no longer having an opinion on the matter either way. If your strategy is otherwise, I wish you the best with dodging the antisemite label yourself, but do not expect your dodging to work. I do not think you or your coalition generally will be able to carve out a stable middle-ground where "antisemite" retains its negative valence and yet effective, consequential criticism builds toward an effective social consensus. I think a major reason this will not happen is because the general Jewish population does not want it to happen, and will organize against you to keep it from happening. When they start calling you a Nazi, know that to at least a minor extent, you have my sympathies, and my hope that the experience is educational for you.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
25d ago
"chud is an acronym. It stands for cannibalistic humanoid underground dweller, from the name of a group of such monsters in a really old horror movie. Calling someone a Chud is calling them a subhuman monster."
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
26d ago
Mostly revolvers like 38 specials or .32s, maybe the occasional .25 auto, but rarely a .45 or 9mm. Whereas now when my clients get caught with guns, 90% of the time it's a 9mm, with a .45 or .40 putting in an occasional appearance.
The crime wave in the 70s got the gun culture much more serious about self-defense, and that lead to a far more "scientific" approach to the question of acceptable handgun chamberings. The social consensus was that anything less than a 9mm was too little gun, and this had a marked impact on the self-defense market as a whole. Once the idea spread through the police force, I'd imagine criminals largely picked it up as well.
A friend built his own MMORPG about twenty years ago; it's a very lo-fi thing, a real artifact of the year 2000, but it is in fact an RPG and it does in fact have massive multiplayer capability. He's recently started reworking it, using AI to assist in development, and I've been playtesting, suggesting improvements, and working on improving the art. It's a lot of fun, and the AI's contribution to the pace of development is staggering.
My other current project is trying to figure out Unity's Behavior system for setting up npc and enemy AI, with the goal of getting functional enemies into one of my old projects.
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