Felagund
1yr ago
Why are racist Jews not part of the dissident right? Unless you make the Jewish Question the single thing that matters? This is rather laughable to me.
I don't care about the Jewish Question. Sure, Jews are overrepresented. Sure, there's probably some mild level of in-group preference or elitism somewhere, although much of the overrepresentation is probably just due to high IQ combined with whatever cultural factors lead to more ambition. But, really, why should I care? Whatever's happening is surely not at the scale that it would have much of a concrete effect on my life. I've liked most of the Jews I've met.
(And since you say that everyone who ignores or countersignals the Jewish Question is automatically coded as Jewish, no, I'm not Jewish, though for full disclosure, I think one of my grandparents said I may have had trace levels of Jewish ancestry.)
Felagund
1yr ago
Why not have one billion Americans (I haven't read it yet myself)? We are nowhere near constraints on space right now; the United States is on the low end for population density. There's so much space to grow.
Sure actively lowering the population would make me question your motives, but if people just prefer cruise ships and video games to reproducing, why do you want to stop them? Why not just have kids of your own who get to inherit a cleaner, more open world with beaches that aren't packed with strangers?
The world will not be more idyllic following a population collapse. Even more of the economy than now will be spent on supporting old people. If this hits worldwide, then we could well have an economic decline everywhere, as division of labor and economies of scale worsen. Especially because developed countries are the ones where birthrates are falling the most, we could see us unable to maintain modern standards of living, and much less innovation. Which might lead to more use of dirtier power and so not the "cleaner, more open world" you describe. And more garbage, as things designed for more people fall into disuse.
People do not think Detroit is better because its population has fallen.
But further, even supposing you're right and those are the options, do you really think that cruise ships and video games are a better life than raising a family?
Felagund
1yr ago
To be clear, I was not asserting that their lithium thesis was correct; the concerns you listed seem quite serious.
I was just asserting that there's more to the story of the rising rates of obesity than "everyone has less willpower than they used to"—that many are calibrated worse, for whatever reason that may be, and so weight gain is fairly common, and we should probably try harder to figure out what exactly is going on.
Felagund
1yr ago
Yeah. This was pretty expected because many states counted mail ballots last, which would be leaning Democrat because Republicans were discouraging mail in voting, but it might not feel that way to many voters.
Felagund
1yr ago
The passage isn't about the Lord's Supper. You had people like Cajetan (the preeminent Thomist, maybe ever, though Thomas himself did not agree) acknowledge this (Four Lutheran Errors, 1531. Six years earlier he thought that it was about the Eucharist, but he changed his mind.).
I have an enormous email chain that I was a part of, where I laid a lot of this out, if you like.
Some of the major points:
John 6:35 sets up a correspondence between believing in him and feeding on him as the bread of life. You can see this repeated when you compare verses 40 or 46 and verse 53, or 47 and 54, and more similar comparisons. It makes sense, then, to interpret this passage as referring to his feeding us through faith, and many throughout church history have recognized as much.
The manna comparison leads to some difficulties when connected with 1 Corinthians 10: he seems to be pushing there manna as sufficiently equivalent to the sacraments, which demands interpretation in light of the distinction to be found in John 6, namely that, I don't think he's talking about sacraments in John 6, but something stronger still.
Following that point, the language of John 6 is too strong, saying that anyone who eats of it has eternal life (in the present), and will live forever (unlike the fathers, who ate manna, who, note, many of them are living forever). See also how in verse 39, there's the reference that no one would be lost. Now, that isn't strictly said there referring to the Eucharist, but given the parallels of language, and the guarantee of resurrection in verse 54, that seems not unreasonable to carry over. But many who partake of the Eucharist do not have eternal life (e.g. those who partake unworthily), and many of those do not end up in heaven.
I'm sure there were other arguments I've made at some point or another. John 6:63 need to be dealt with, for example, but I haven't looked at that adequately to know what I make of it.
I see you in another comment mention that the church believed this for 1500 years. That is somewhat of an exaggeration. There were earlier precedents of disagreement on the matter of the eucharist. Berengar of Tours is famous, Ratramnus of Corbie was earlier, and the resurfacing of his writings played were influential in the English reformation, quite possibly John Scotus Eriugena, and Augustine himself seems not to believed in the real presence, exactly, either (and Calvin thought he was following Augustine).
I literally argued that we can treat them as a separate population in a useful manner. Are you going to address that, instead of merely asserting it?
Or is your complaint that there's no clear lines, and only a spectrum? I see no reason why that should change our ability to talk about it.
Nor is there any reason why only having one feature in common should mean that we can't look at things with respect to that feature. (and, of course, it's not quite the one feature in common—everything that correlates with poverty will be something they are statistically more likely to have as well, and vice versa)
It's obvious why people born on the Fourth of July is useless: it has no correlation with genetics, and it causes no persistent groups. Socioeconomic class is not like that. Yes, there is class mobility, and intermarriage, but statistically, people are more likely to stay somewhere around where they started, relatively speaking. Of course, this varies from individual to individual, but there's no reason for it not to be useful on a population level.
There's no reason to require millenia-old groups to be able to talk about human genetics. All that matters are group differences derived in part from genotypes.
Felagund
1yr ago
More than one, which is why "poor people" doesn't work as a relevant group.
This seems silly? What exactly is lost by treating "poor people" as a relevant group? I guess I don't see the relevant differences.
It would be quite surprising if they were the same along all traits as elites, because of factors like those originally pointed out by @FiveHourMarathon: there is obviously selection going on as people find their positions in society, and assortative mating will help those clusters to be distinct. I see no reason not to look at additional, smaller, clusters beyond race.
Our default assumption should be that it is partially genetic, since that seems true of a great many things about human differences.
It's fine to compare groups even if they interbreed, as long as it's not an even mixing between them—statistical differences should be preserved (for how long depends on how strong the selection and interbreeding is).
Felagund
1yr ago
They, generally speaking, don't think it repeals them, because it's not imposing any criminal penalties, just a qualification for office, and isn't a law, but a constitutional provision.
That said, if we ignored that, we can all agree that it applied ex post facto, that is, to the members of the Confederate cause, so at least in that respect it can conflict with the spirit of other parts of the constitution. The enacters at the time also thought it would be equivalent to a bill of attainder.
Felagund
17d ago
You can't use DNA evidence from a place to prove you weren't there, which is what he's trying to do.
Felagund
2mo ago
Because I think that people are only saved by Christ, so none of those work.
Now, if you're asking why I think that Christianity is more likely to be true than some position that would recommend any other identifiable course of action, well, I think that the fact that it's claiming to be a revealed religion and is large are reasonably strong points in its favor—if we expect God to reveal himself (or, at least, if we expect that to be likely provided that he care about what we do, which is what is here relevant, since we want to know what can give infinite benefits/harms). I think that the evidence for the resurrection is decent. The teachings make sense.
Felagund
2mo ago
@SubstantialFrivolity had a much better response, and I wouldn't have this objection if you'd said something like that. I only warn you, for the sake of your soul at the day of judgment, to consider things seriously instead of as a mechanism of getting me to shut up. There are much more important concerns than shutting me up.
Felagund
2mo ago
Well, then look for options that don't require belief, and do those?
Or at least be researching the options extremely diligently on the off chance that one of them is true and you're convinced or God directly causes faith in you (for the positions that believe that happens) or something.
Any of these paths seem obviously to dominate over uncaring atheism.
Felagund
5mo ago
Use xcancel.com .
Felagund
6mo ago
But you said you were an atheist?
Where do you think Paul got his teachings?
Felagund
6mo ago
Things have clearly not gone as well for archaeologists hoping to prove the Exodus
Common misconception!
Felagund
6mo ago
But where do you think Saul got that Christianity from?
There were the apostles, who knew Jesus himself, and Saul confirmed with them that what he was saying was accurate. (See Galatians 2.)
Felagund
6mo ago
Perhaps you're excepting John, but it's pretty clear in John.
Jesus also forgives sins in the gospels.
I don't think Jesus actually intended every person to do every thing he spoke of. For example, he probably didn't intend for everyone to be gauging out their eyes.
Felagund
1yr ago
I'm not sure what exactly Rahimi entails. Gorsuch posed it as only saying that banning firearms, temporarily, from those judged, by a court, to be dangerous, is permissible.
Felagund
1yr ago
Language has meaning to the extent that people are willing to cooperate in building and maintaining that meaning together. If they are not, then it cannot. For any deeper "meaning" than that, I think you need something approximately like an appeal to God. I'm willing to accept such appeals, but others are very clearly not, and neither you nor I have any means by which to compel such acceptance.
Or you can just be a textualist about meaning. Sentences make assertions, commands, etc. Words have ordinary denotations, at least within a given language and context. You can throw that together with some grammar and get a more-or-less well-defined meaning to what it's saying. I don't think my writing this only contains any meaning from social consensus; if you all died halfway through my writing this, it'd still have meaning.
And it just so happens that "faithful interpretation" consistently results in judgements that match their own perceptions of what is just and good, and sometimes no more than what is expedient. Any contradictions between these judgements and the text itself are easily resolved by words words words. I'm given to understand that "emanations" and "penumbras" are sometimes involved.
I said "pretty often". I did not say always. Further, if they are erring in their judgment, even just trying, or feeling pressured to make a "good enough" argument will help to constrain.
That said, yeah, the things you list tend to be bad, and were deliberately trying to stretch things.
In the past, certainly. In the present, not really, no. In the future, not at all, I should think. Common knowledge and path dependency trump all other factors. It is certainly true that understanding the Constitution is necessary to understand how we got to where we are now, and the short version is that when it was written people really believed in it. But to understand where we are going, one needs to understand that this belief has largely died, and within a generation at most will be entirely extinct.
Don't help it. It's useful.
It's not just path-dependency, as it continues to be used as a reference, and is treated as the supreme law of the land, however poorly. If we collectively, openly, decided tomorrow that it doesn't matter you'd see large changes.
Anyway, I don't think it'll be dead. Conservatives not infrequently turn to it to back up their preferred policies in guns or speech, so there's at least some motive to keep it around, even just in the domain of "let's bash my enemies".
Supreme Court decisions favoring Blue Tribe observably have vastly greater impact than decisions favoring Red Tribe. Decisions favoring Red Tribe have been quite explicitly defied by lower courts, and the Supreme Court has then quite explicitly allowed such defiance to stand. I have no problem explaining such behavior: the Court realizes that its power derives from social consensus, not formal law, and recognizes that the consensus is against it and that further attempts to enforce the law will cost it more than it can afford. But if you believe the Constitution is really where their power springs forth, I'd be interested in your alternate explanation of such behavior. The Supreme Court sided with Dick Heller, yet he still can't have his gun. Why is that?
In the recent past. Wasn't true of Lochner, though. (Not that *Lochner was right). In any case, the left kept winning because they'd built up enough institutional power, both in the presidency and in the court system. The right is not currently at that state. That's why it does worse. But what. Do you really think that Blue entities will become more moderate when you tell whatever portion of them who currently have principles that they don't have to care about those pesky things any more?
It'd be more useful, if the right got the level of power that would be needed to effectually ignore the constitution, to bring force to bear to ensure that it's actually followed.
And given that I observe that decisions favoring my tribe are routinely nullified by Blues wherever they are stronger, why should I support upholding decisions favoring blues where we Reds are stronger? What value is secured by doing so?
We control SCOTUS now, for the first time in nearly a century. Give it time; the pendulum will swing as bad precedent after bad precedent falls and in 50 years the blues come asking you that same question. Feel free to aid in overturning those precedents, if given the opportunity. But treat it with sufficient seriousness, so that it sticks, instead of giving them an out as soon as your side has power.
If there's one thing the conservative movement's actually managed to do institutionally, it's the federalist society. Don't throw that out.
I don't think I can offer a response better than that of Lysander Spooner:
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."
Yeah, this quote is wrong. It's better to view it as a headwind, maybe—it can be resisted and defeated, but that takes effort, and less is done than without it's presence.
So, sure, we've gotten such a government, but it was slower in coming and still, somehow, smaller and more constrained than it would be did the Constitution not exist.
Sure, it's bad, but imagine how much worse off we'd be without it.
The value of the Constitution came when it acted as a hard limit on the scope and scale of political conflict. People understood it to put many tools of power off the table for most practical purposes, removing them from the normal push and pull of the political contest. When we vote, the Constitution means that we're voting on policy, not on our basic political rights. If we lose, we suffer the other side's policies for a few years, but our rights are inviolate.
Yes, this is what it's trying to do. Yes, this isn't really what happens, often. But the commitment to constitution means we are at least having to pretend to be trying, which puts us in a better state than if no one cared.
Where your "norms"?
In every trickling force making it easier to follow the status quo. In the respect many people have for things like "rule of law," and so they yield.
To the extent that common knowledge of its death has not proliferated, it serves mainly to fool people into making sacrifices that will not be reciprocated by those who caught on a little quicker.
I guess I see it as having more weight even with the blues than you do. At least, in things without political valence, like the existence of the 4th amendment, is a very good thing. Don't get rid of that. But even in matters with political valence, they do listen sometimes.
Ah, I guess you might have a narrower opinion of what Dissident Right refers to than I did, which would explain some of the difference, depending, I suppose, on what exactly you mean by white identity politics. I would have considered HBD-ish views, combined with other edginess (e.g. takes on gender), to be sufficient to be dissident right, even without advocating for a group racial identity.
Personally, I suppose I'm pro-white in the sense that I don't think that we deserve the enmity coming our way, but I do think that the more important unit of opposition isn't really about race but about politics. (In the US. South Africa, for example, may be another story.) I don't think it's healthy to intensify racial division (and Hanania's probably right when he argues that the main impulse behind our current racial tensions is due to black racial grievance), as that leads to more societal dysfunction. That is, I'm in favor of defensive action against anti-white discrimination. I'm neutral about positive racial identity, as a celebration of ancestry, past etc, though I think national pride is probably a healthier way to go about that, if anything. But I'm not in favor of making that anywhere near the key component of identity, nor having tribal-ish racial preferences.
Isn't this already the baseline for politics on the right? Hence the opposition to affirmative action, etc. Can you name a single conservative thinker who is pro-affirmative action?
Again, it would be healthier if this were adopted by being pro-meritocracy, rather than pro-white, although in this case for different reasons. Looking at things in terms of attempting to capture spoils leads to socialism (as the frame is around getting people to give me stuff), whereas we need more of the American focus on excellence and dynamism.
Maybe? Although you might rather point to the left in general. But I don't know that I agree with your vision of how society and identity should be shaped anyway, so I suppose I don't see this as a terrible thing.
When you're obviously racist against Jews, it doesn't surprise me that they're opposed to such behavior. I imagine some events, oh, 80 years ago or so might have had an influence on how they approach such decisions. Do you really think they should be cheering you on as you try to form lines of in-group preference and out-group prejudice with them on the outside?
But in any case, I think your final analogy breaks down somewhat because plenty of people identify as both Jewish and white (indeed, before the recent introduction of the Middle East/North Africa census category, that was the government-approved way for Jews to identify). So then, people having a super-white aesthetic and attracting a white audience using super-white memes could still be Jewish and be doing what they're doing authentically, whereas that isn't possible in your analogy.
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