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FiveHourMarathon

Wawa Nationalist

17 followers   follows 6 users  
joined 2022 September 04 22:02:26 UTC

And every gimmick hungry yob

Digging gold from rock n roll

Grabs the mic to tell us

he'll die before he's sold

But I believe in this

And it's been tested by research

He who fucks nuns

Will later join the church


				
User ID: 195


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
FiveHourMarathon


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Wawa Nationalist

				
				
				

				

					17 followers  

					follows 6 users  

					joined 2022 September 04 22:02:26 UTC
				


				
					

					
And every gimmick hungry yob


Digging gold from rock n roll


Grabs the mic to tell us


he'll die before he's sold


But I believe in this


And it's been tested by research


He who fucks nuns


Will later join the church



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 195


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Look within yourself, there's a conservative inside you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not debating their CW bona fides, just the goofiness of it. It's embarrassing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Pruning and uprooting are quite different tasks and philosophies.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


chump




Exactly.


It's not about the math. It's about being made to feel like a fool.


Scott had that post recently about crime rates and spent a lot of time talking about shoplifting, and I think one big difference is that shoplifting when I was young seemed like something really risky. And now with self-checkout, it just seems like I'm only paying because I'm a chump.


Aside: City Journal used to be a publication I really liked, then I saw their college rankings where they weighed Jewish Issues higher than any other aspect of college, and essentially rigged it to get goofy ass answers, and since then I've been really confused by them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"we don't need the Olympics, we have the Asian Games" and so on.




That seems like an odd thing for the ChiComms to be saying in 2026, when they seem to be pretty competitive in most of the Winter Olympic events. They aren't winning Gold everywhere, but they had a few events that were nearly sweeps, and it seems like every event I see a PRC competitor on the broadcast.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Super Bowl halftime show peaked in the early 2000s, since 2016 or so there just aren't acts universally big enough to fit the bill.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A conservative is someone who wants to conserve what is both existing and good.


Dreher, at his recent worst, is a reactionary, who wants to turn the clock back and destroy what exists.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Do you get along with your father, and do you think he is proud of who you are?"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for February 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Gym bros wear completely different clothing that doesn’t show off




Speak for yourself. I'm mostly in either a tank top or shirtless when I'm in a public gym.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for February 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's wrong to look in such a way that she would notice, ie staring/leering/etc.


The best point for reference being a hypothetical like "If my very jealous and hormonal wife were standing next to me, would I do this?" Or maybe "If a guy was staring at me like that, would I expect a fight to break out?"


Enjoy the show, but have some class. Your eyes don't make noise, there's no reason anyone should be aware of what you're looking at.


For reference, I've been going to gyms for fifteen years or so and I've never had a confrontation with a woman over staring at her, and I've certainly looked at a lot of women. Every climbing gym seems to have one girl I refer to only as "headlights." I did once have a confrontation with an enormous dude, because I was staring at him doing like 400lb squats and I was impressed. The only time I've ever been confronted by a woman in the gym was when I was dropping snatches from overhead with bumper plates. I calmly explained that this was the correct way to bail on a missed lift, and that I periodically practiced it when working towards a max.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And, as @FiveHourMarathon points out, the historical method of creating virtue is intentionally creating a sort of limited Hard Times even amongst a society living in Good Times.




I tend to think that the problem with the Good Time/Hard Times/Decadence memeplex is that the unit of analysis is typically wrong. The luxury or thrift of the majority of people don't matter, for the purposes typically considered. What matters is really the leadership class of a society, both as aspiration and model for the lower classes and as the most important engine of society. We're concerned about the actions of the Patricians, not the Plebs.


A society experiencing "hard times" can still have an elite focused on creature comforts, a society experiencing "good times" can still have an elite that focuses on The Strenuous Life. The concept of decadence within the western tradition has always been a warning against the former, normally coded in terms of oriental despotism, and towards the latter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Huh. Maybe I'm the idiot.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Given that this started with a discussion of Brett Devereaux's Fremen Mirage thread I am going to call the sides broadly in favour and broadly against Devereaux's thesis pro-D and anti-D for brevity's sake.




This whole comment is very confusing because Deveraux himself is the contra of the original point being debated, so the anti-D side is the pro Hard Times side etc.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's accurate, but a big underlying tension to the halftime show drama for a decade now is the degradation of pop music as a common part of American civic religion. When Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, or Prince played the halftime show it was expected that better than, what, 75% of viewers would enjoy at least some of their music? I don't think an act exists today that hits that kind of penetration. You're either picking oldies, like Bruce Springsteen, or what are ultimately by the standards of pop music up until the 2000s niche acts. Adjusting for population size, Thriller had a penetration of like 25% of the population listening to it; the best selling albums of 2025 like Taylor and Wallen only get to about a fifth of that. Morgan Wallen is notable as a crossover country star with sales so large that he shows up on the "normal" charts, but he's less than half of Shania Twain's penetration at her peak. The top selling acts of today are more like niche styles, where they used to be universal. The highest penetration acts are ten or twenty years out of date, which brings accusations of being stale, the modern acts are loved by 10-20% and hated by 10-20%, and mostly have lyrics that can't be repeated on television. Spanish language being the hack around this.


Growing up I just sort of understood this, I don't know who told me exactly, but in elementary school I thought of it as just a thing you were supposed to do that one listened to Counting Down the Hits with Casey Kasum every weekend to know what was going on in the world, and that not liking what was popular was somehow a bad thing. A Good American was supposed to appreciate Linkin Park, Eminem, Shania Twain, Cher, and Metalllica; at least a little. The county fair could be counted on to get one or two real pop acts every year, and young people went to them whether it was your favorite band or not, because it was a big time pop show in our little town.


I guess I have trouble understanding how anyone is getting worked up about Bad Bunny when Kendrick and Dre were unquestionably "worse" on culture war grounds. I didn't have to explain what was being bleeped out to my parents. Playing foreign rap music was basically how I got around requests for rap when I managed a gym with a "family friendly" mandate on the radio.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sure, but what I see out there is the Red Tribe and the Blue Tribe getting performatively mad at each other, with the Red Tribe acting as though the halftime show was coordinated by some perfidious cabal of Oberlin professors and the Blue Tribe declaring that they are the normal ones. When the reality is that this was coordinated by such evil libtards as Robert Kraft and the Walton family, and that is the agenda that needs to be questioned.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I just don't think you can make a map that really works. There's too many baptists in NYC, too many liberal arts colleges in Indiana. The cultural capital of the country is too mixed up. Texas is the only region that maybe has a strong enough identity to secede, but that would depend (oddly) on future Texan leaders moderating their red tribe culture warring significantly enough to get buy in from the 40% of the state the votes blue. The reverse in California or New England may also work, if they could moderate, but they are far behind Texas in regional identity.


I live in Pennsylvania. If I drive half an hour north or west I'm definitely in Appalachia, if I drive an hour south or two hours east I'm in the heart of the megalopolis. There's no clean line where people would feel happy drawing that line and letting "them" have the rest.


I guess what I'm getting around to is that I don't think there is a future where Red or Blue America can balkanize successfully, rather a future balkanized America would require stronger regional identities which moderate between Blue and Red. The populations are too mixed, and the ambitions that underly the culture war movement are too universal. Red Texas or Blue New England cannot secede, Purple Texas and Purple New England might be able to.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't recall a halftime show that impressed me more, particularly. He was definitely a lot better than Kendrick or Dre or Usher, because mercifully I didn't understand the words.


But I think most of the Discourse around this misses the point. The NFL as an organization wants to market more to hispanics at home and abroad, hispanics in America are less bought in to the NFL than whites or blacks, while Mexico and Latin America offer potential for growth. Move that godawful team in Jacksonville to Mexico City one day?


This was a calculated decision to punt on Anglo audiences that the NFL already owns to appeal to hispanics.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There is no American Civil War that can result in balkanization. America has been too unified for too long.


If that is the inevitable result, it will be after decades, if not centuries, of civil wars, plural, which eventually massacre enough people to create clean stable lines.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Once one gets into nuances like that, it just becomes a question of creating virtuous men. How do we do it? One of the historical methods is by artificially creating hard times fo those experiencing good times in a society. The battle of Waterloo, after all, was won on the playing fields of Eton. We used to call such activities character building.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
America's Imperial wars of the past 100 years are best compared against various efforts to control uncontrollable hinterlands which were a constant feature of imperial history among the ancients. The Persians tried to subdue the Scythians, Varus tried to conquer the Germans, Pharaohs seemed to send an army to disappear into the south periodically, a powerful Chinese emperor would try to subdue the steppe. It's always part of the imperial rhythm to try to control economically marginal hinterlands, with mixed success.


I'm sure there's a term in military theory for what I'm talking about, but we're stuck in a thinking about wars that is primarily about peer wars, and we've lost concepts like the raid and the punitive expedition, which were much more common throughout most of history.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
When asked who I'm voting for, I tell the joke my father in law gave me from Iran:




I'm voting for Ali Baba, he only has forty thieves.




That often gets me out of the conversation smoothly enough.


If someone is earnestly trying to figure out my politics, I'm honest about them, perhaps choosing to target issue discussions that I think offer favorable ground for my arguments, on which I can sound more intellectually sophisticated or think I can find common ground with my interlocutor, compared to ground where my arguments are weaker or less sophisticated.


Hiding the ball ("Secret ballot innit?" "I never tell anyone who I vote for" "I just moved to town so I wasn't able to register in time..." "What's voting?") is probably the worst thing you can do if your goal is to be diplomatic and get a potentially prejudiced interlocutor to like you, because you're admitting guilt about it, confirming their suspicion that Republicans/Democrats know that their choices are evil and bad and nonetheless revel in mustache-stroking evil deeds. She's likely to think your politics are worse than they are if you aren't willing to even talk about them.


You're much better off being bold and saying what you believe, it's a more attractive quality than cowardice or guilt.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's a parallel theory that, for example, American soldiers in WWII were comfortable with mechanics because farms were more mechanized in America at the time. They were used to fiddling with engines on tractors and trucks, and were better at performing tasks like that during the war.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I applaud your efforts at cohesive argument.


To have this debate honestly, we need to start by defining a pile of terms before we even start.


What constitutes Good Times? What constitutes Hard Times? What is the expected period over which the cycle should occur?


Then what are Strong Men? What are Weak Men? Hell, what do we mean by "men" exactly? Do we mean the whole testicled population of the state, do we mean "freeborn" or "citizen" men, or do we mean an elite subset of leadership? Because those three groups can all be at different layers of the cycle at the same time, the dynamic can occur internally as well as externally.


But most importantly I think the missing assumption in all this is: how long should an empire last? What is the expected period that can be lengthened or shortened by cultural practices?


A lot of the arguments here hinge on defining terms differently. If we can communicate what we're saying, we can probably reach a consensus. Which ultimately comes more to something like Strong Cultural Practices Produce Strong People, Weak Cultural Practices Produce Weak People.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So I don't think a talented wordcel could fake an Orthodox Jewish conversion with ordinary effort.




I mean, given that the supposed stakes are facing down genocide, I think "ordinary effort" in that case is actually pretty high, and could be executed if necessary. The major impediment to most of us being personal attractiveness as candidates, rather than ability to mouth the necessary platitudes and complete the necessary behavioral modifications. I don't know that I would be able to do it, primarily because I believe in Jesus and secondarily because of the circumcision, but for most that probably isn't an insurmountable set of barriers, and I could certainly imagine being forced to do so in a fantasy universe to go undercover or something. It's not rocket surgery.




Note that the Israeli authorities do not recognize Conservative and Reform conversions.




I'm not talmudic scholar enough to dig into what exactly that means but this article states that:




Israel’s “Law of Return” gives foreign-born Jews, or anyone with a Jewish parent, grandparent or spouse, the automatic right to claim Israeli citizenship. Those who convert to non-Orthodox Judaism in another country have been able to gain Israeli citizenship for decades.




But it does appear that Orthodox is a better bet to guarantee recognition.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So do you think that all google searches, internet queries, LLM queries should be inadmissible in court? Or only those that can plausibly be called legal research?