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 January 5, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 11hr ago

Pink no, but that was Taylor's whole thing. Kinda still is.

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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 4, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 12hr ago

Leading to a more intensive federalism at home and abroad.

We can start by integrating countries like Greenland, Canada, Singapore which are already compatible.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 12hr ago

This is a misunderstanding of the objectives of the Trump administration at this time.

The goal of the administration is not to impose a cohesive, functional policy worldview. Their goal is not long term control of the government and direction of policy. That has been judged to be impossible for a variety of reasons. This isn't a takeover, it is a raid, it is material and positional denial. The goal is to spike the cannons so that when the counterattack succeeds, the enemy will no longer be able to use those weapons. This will permanently tilt the board in the direction of preferred policies and against disfavored policies, even after the exposed salient is lost.

This is a particular application of Madman Theory, which Trump has often leaned towards, but I think it is better labeled in this case Unreliable Partner Theory. The goal isn't to extract concessions, as in Madman Theory, but to make it clear that you cannot rely on the United States under any circumstances, because the United States is deeply schizophrenic and unreliable. The rules based international order cannot be altered, but it can be ruined beyond repair. The deep ideological heart of Trump World sees the writing on the wall. A few weeks ago polling showed a 16% lead for Democrats in the mid terms on a generic ballot. Generic ballots aren't real, and it's ten months away, but a 16% loss would be a wipeout, and likely prevent any legislation from getting passed. Republicans, and especially MAGA candidates, have underperformed without Trump on the ballot, and he's not going to run in 2028, or if he tries he's quite likely to be unable to do the job in short order, being an 80 year old man who loves McDonald's and thinks that cardio reduces your lifespan because you only get a certain number of heartbeats before you die. Seeing that they only have a small window, the focus is not on implementing smart, sane, gradual policies that will build things for the future; it is on implementing radical, constantly changing, caleidoscopic policies that make it impossible to rely on the US Government in the future, forcing a decoupling of everything from foreign partners to local industry.

This is visible in the approach to the federal workforce. Can Trump shrink the federal workforce? Maybe, maybe not. But what he can done, what he already has done, is permanently break the understanding that a federal government job was a sinecure for life. The federal government is, for a lawyer or researcher or engineer, no longer a reliable partner. In the future when a Democratic president tries to expand the federal. workforce, they will find fewer takers.

The Trump Administration can remove some illegals in an orderly legal manner, but a later Democratic administration can just let more in. By being cruel and arbitrary, the Trump administration insures that no future illegal migrant, and fewer legal migrants, will feel safe coming to the United States, even after future policy changes.

The Trump administration can force new provisions into NATO requiring higher military spending by European countries, but those provisions already exist and won't be enforced by future administrations. (I've never understood the media theory for why talking about breaking Article 5 is a threat to NATO, while actually violating Article 3 for years is no big deal) But the Trump administration can act in such erratic and confusing ways that European powers will be forced to increase their military spending in order to provide for their own protection.

Viewed in this lens, the NSS and the confusion surrounding it makes a lot of sense. It's designed to scare the Euros straight, because even if these guys are out of power, they might be in power again, and it's doing a bang up job.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 12hr ago

Thankfully I’m not that knowledgeable about this entire sleazy subject but as far as I can tell, Britney Spears also had scarce intentions herself of maintaining her good girl image after a while.

I'm reminded of Sam Sheridan's quip in A Fighter's Heart where he noticed that a major risk factor in deaths in the boxing ring was family members in the corner. A fighter's brother, father, uncle was much more likely to keep sending him back out there until he died than was a professional coach.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 12hr ago

I'm trying to find data on it but I'm not succeeding quickly. Entry level wages have been bimodal, but the up-or-out nature of big law means that a lot of those highly-paid associates are gone within two to four years, and some for jobs where they (adjusting for inflation) they will never make more than they did early on at biglaw. Surveys report that 20% of associates leave their firms annually, though some are lateral to another firm. And of course a big part of the bimodalism has to do with the strong preference among elite professional degree holders for urban living; too few are willing or able to move to Cleveland, let alone Lancaster or Wyoming, to advance their careers.

But a small percentage of lawyers advancing their careers after failing at earlier prestige games doesn't necessarily mean that the system isn't meritocratic, it might tell us that a small percentage of good lawyers are being "thrown away" by the earlier screening systems.

I can't quantify it easily, but looking around at mid career lawyers, there is a definite path both down and up for lawyers based on talent. There are people I know who made big law and now aren't even practicing, and people I know who are making partner at prominent small town firms and pulling down a decent living now, which will improve considerably when the boomers have the courtesy to die off and free up a lot of work.

Even take a small city local DAs office as an example. Dauphin County, where Harrisburg is located, will hire young ADAs out of schools like Dusquesne and Penn State and Weidner with mediocre grades. The entry level wage is low, probably $60-70k these days. The experienced average is like $175k and the DA makes in the $200k range with a lot of local prestige to go with it. The Dauphin County DA went to Widener, started as an ADA thirty years ago, and now is the DA. There's obviously political elements to becoming DA, both office politics and electoral politics, but for the most part the way you become DA is by having at least some degree of talent for law.

None of this is perfect, there's still a ton of early career gatekeeping and prestige games, especially around the highest end jobs. But we're not comparing it to perfection, just to the example offered by OP: research science. If you're a research scientist without a university or industry affiliation, there's not a very comparable way to advance and revive your career.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 15hr ago

I would actually say that Law is one of the most meritocratic fields over the long run, in that while the really elite levels are gatekept behind prestigious degrees, you can still put out a shingle and work and build a base of clientele and advance. There are local lawyers pulling down excellent livings in any region of 100,000 people. Where doing physics research requires being hired by one of a handful of institutions in the world, and if you don't meet their criteria or get unlucky early in your career, tant pis.

A good lawyer who gets bad grades at a mediocre law school probably won't reach SCOTUS, he can still end up a trial judge or a partner at a very profitable law firm. A great chemist who misses out on professional and academic opportunities teaches at the high school.

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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 4, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 16hr ago

Yes. 2 senators each, plus a rejiggering of the house.

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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 4, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 17hr ago

I don't really think anywhere needs more sovereignty than Alabama, so as long as it's made a state I think it's a positive thing to bring it into the union. Good first step to adding Cuba, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and every Canadian province.

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Friday Fun Thread for January 2, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 1d ago

A great man has passed.

We at the Wawa Nationalist Front wish to offer our condolences to our chivalrous foes at Sheetz on the death of Mr Sheetz. We may disagree with Sheetz customers on matters of taste, decorum, basic hygiene, and just how sweet you can make a coffee before it's inedible. But I will forever remember how hilarious I found it that Sheetz was founded and owned by Mr Sheetz, and when you're REALLY drunk at 2am there's nothing like a $6 triple fried app sampler.

You can kill the man, but not the idea.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 1d ago

WSJ, but same difference.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 1d ago

"Spending time with small children is boring and I hate it and would prefer to do as little of it as possible" is a classic scissor statement: some large portion of the people who read it think it is obviously true and no right thinking non-lobotomized person could think otherwise, and some large portion of the people who read it think it is obviously false and no right thinking person with a soul could think it was true.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 1d ago

This is a remarkably good scissor statement, in that I find the people being mean to him insufferable, and even inasmuch as I might find the Sillicon Valley Crypto Guy of it all mockable, I still have an innate rage at people dismissing him as a shitty dad.

So despite knowing that I'm falling for a scissor statement and starting a fight for no reason, I'm going to do it anyway: if you want to call this guy a shitty dad I don't want to hear you bitch about the TFR.

There was a letter to the editor in the WSJ this morning that I took a picture of to remember, from Leah Libresco Sargeant, replying to a prior article by William Galston title "America Needs More Husband Material" about how men need to shape up so they can get wives. Sargeant cites surveys of high school seniors showing that a declining percentage of young people feel that they will be "very good" spouses. The money quote that stuck out to me:

Giving [kids] more lectures on how important marriage is won't do it, they think so highly of the institution that they judge themselves incapable of living up to it.

((She goes on to say kids need more self organized play to develop into marriage material, citing her homeschooled husband's experience running a youth theater company. I should look her up and see what her arguments are outside two paragraphs of newsprint.))

My brother-in-law is a fantastic dad, he spends a ton of time with my niece and nephew, he dedicates himself to them, they are always the number one priority, he values nothing else. My own father, who was a great father to me*, frequently jokes that BiL makes him feel bad about the time he spent with us growing up. Frankly, if I couldn't have kids until I wanted to be a dad the way my BiL is a dad, I will never have kids. I will never want to spend all day with my two year old. If that's the standard for having kids, I will never meet it, and a lot of other people won't either.

If we are trying to convince people to have kids, especially conscientious neurotic high achieving people who we really want to have conscientious high achieving kids, then setting impossible standards will not achieve it.

As to the "this is distasteful and shouldn't be shared" thing, it feels very odd to me, like a blue haired wokie screeching about misogyny because of a bland "women be shopping" joke. Just a massive example of the political correctness commissars telling people what they are and aren't allowed to feel, and what feelings they are and aren't allowed to talk about. "YOU WILL PLAY WITH THE TODDLER, YOU WILL ENJOY IT, PARENTHOOD IS JOY!"

When parenthood was more normalized, bitching about it was too! Don't start the politically correct cycle of gatekeeping who is and isn't allowed to be a parent and how they are allowed to feel about it, it will not increase the number of people having kids one iota.

*Your opinion of the results may differ.

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Friday Fun Thread for January 2, 2026

FiveHourMarathon Wawa Nationalist 1d ago

Yes, absolutely. The average person isn't going to go to their priest frequently for such guidance and help, but only a minority of people need to go to a therapist either.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 29, 2025