JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
1d ago
Dude, there are literally thousands of people being removed from the country weekly who, in the world we lived in last year, were in no danger of deportation.
Yes, those are illegal aliens. If you are one, it's very much the time to prepare a plan B. And nobody made a secret of it since the beginning for Trump campaign, which is years from now - one of the major promises Trump made was to deport illegal aliens. He run the whole campaign on it. He never made a promise to revoke citizenship from existing citizens.
So yeah, research into alternatives is a reasonable thing to start doing on the off chance we see similar changes by next year.
If that's what you want to do, don't let anybody to stop you. Some people prepare for alien invasion (the Mars kind, not the Guatemala kind), some for the rapture, who can forbid one to prepare for Trump revoking citizenships? I am just providing some data on how realistic this scenario actually is, where to take it from there is one's own business.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
He has a lot of weird things, but how many people exactly got a free run for several months to try and reform US government? I mean, this is a gargantuan task, and Musk if probably severely deluded if he thinks he can accomplish it under the power of his own personal will alone, but how many people actually got at least as far as he did? How many people have managed to kill a $50 billion US federal government agency? How many people could actually get the power to audit Social Security and Treasury money flows? I mean not talk for 30 years about how we need to audit this and that, but actually get access to the freakin data?
He is weird, and he does weird things, and some of the weird things maybe impede his success, but I think he's a pretty "powerful thing" as he is already.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
That way of thinking easily leads to unbounded paranoia. Yes, Trump didn't issue an executive order to round up all foreign-born people into camps, but he might do it. Yes, SCOTUS made it pretty clear they don't like the government to revoke the citizenship retroactively, but they might change their minds. Yes, there's no official state-sanctioned cult of Trump The Divine with five daily kneeled prayers and mandatory floggings of non-citizens, but there might be. I mean, no known physical law forbids it, and even if they did, there might be new law discoveries that allow things that we consider impossible now.
You have to stop this somewhere, otherwise it will lead you into madness. Worrying about things that might happen if the world became completely unlike the world we're living in now is not the way to live in the world we're living in now.
this is not actually how it works in most of the non-US West
Well, yes, I can admit that as Europe is concerned, they are moving quite fast to the oppressive, and sometimes approaching totalitarian, direction, and there a person who is persecuted for disagreeing with the government - which is not at all limited to Nazis now - could be justly called "dissident". I haven't read anything the person in question posted, is he European?
JarJarJedi
2d ago
They might, but it still does not apply to anyone who already has the citizenship, and in fact anyone who has already been born. Moreover, SCOTUS already decided the government can not revoke a lawfully acquired citizenship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afroyim_v._Rusk so unless you voluntarily decide to denaturalize, Trump can't do much here.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
Technically, maybe, but in common usage "dissident" is usually applied to someone who is persecuted by an oppressive, usually totalitarian, government, for their political views. Not somebody who is out of power because his policies and views disgust 99.9% of the population, but still is free to publicly proclaim and propagandize them.
It's like people claiming that since Arabs are Semitic people, opposing Hamas is "akshually anti-Semitic!" Yeah, no, that's not how it works, "akshually".
JarJarJedi
2d ago
thereby yanking my birthright citizenship.
I don't think it's how it works. See for yourself: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/
Specifically section 2(b):
(b) Subsection (a) of this section shall apply only to persons who are born within the United States after 30 days from the date of this order.
I don't know when exactly have you been born, but I assume it was before February 2025, right?
If Congress didn't declare war, committing an act of war is illegal and unconstitutional.
No it is not. You are welcome to provide a single precedent confirming otherwise, and the list of Presidents prosecuted for Vietnam, Korea, Libya, Grenada, Panama, Yugoslavia, and similar military actions. I don't even require a conviction - a mere holding by any appropriate judicial authority, such as SCOTUS, that all these usages of military were illegal, and that the Supreme Commander of the Military has no rights to use the military without congressional vote, would suffice. Absent that, I will be forced to conclude you pulled this judicial opinion from some place where you have tattoos - which is usually not a good source of judicial opinions.
I got it from carefully reading my tattoo of the US constitution.
No you did not, unless of course Article 2 is tatooed in some place that is hard for you to reach. And even if you did, US jurisprudence somewhat developed since 1789, and one of the things that has been well established and confirmed by numerous precedent is the power of the President to employ the military. It is not absolute - if you have some un-tatooed places left, you can probably fit War Powers Act somewhere. After you are done with that, you may think about why the Congress required the President to merely notify them in 48 hours about something that you claim is completely illegal and unconstitutional - and then gives them 60 days to keep doing it, and then another 30 days to keep doing it. Is Congress really unaware that it all has been illegal from the start? Did you do you civic duty and tell them so they could fix this colossal blunder?
I didn't get this from whatever fantasy of Democratic talking points you're imagining
My imagination is so powerful that is reflected on TV, in major Democratic newspapers and in many speeches of Democratic politician. How stupid of me to imagine this silliness instead of using my vast powers to imagine myself a billionaire!
JarJarJedi
6d ago
The Federalists were against adding an explicit Bill of Rights, and only chose to do so as a compromise.
Yes, but why they were against? Because they argued if you explicitly make a list "there's a right to X, right to Y, right to Z" - and then somebody comes with the question about whether or not the government can regulate R, then people would say "well, it's not X, Y or Z, and there's a list and it must be for a reason, those are clearly more important than others, so R not a real right, it's kinda secondary one, so let's regulate the heck out of it" - completely opposite of what 10th Amendment was intended. And they were right - we hear arguments like these all the time now. If it's not mentioned in the plain text of the Constitution, good luck limiting the government reach into it. The Anti-Federalists were kinda right too, in that that without Bill of Rights, we probably wouldn't be able to hold on even on those enumerated rights either - see Europe as an example. At least this way we got something out of it, even though much less than we were originally supposed to.
No, the Congress didn't declare any wars since 1942. That doesn't make your false claim any more true. And the fact that you are using the same fallacious logic as Democrat propaganda instructs you to use is a good confirmation Democrats did deploy an opposition to Trump's actions, and this opposition is quite effective - people are now thinking, completely contrary to the facts, that Trump "launched an illegal war". That didn't happen by itself, they made it happen.
JarJarJedi
7d ago
Democrats failed to offer any organized opposition to Trump when he launched an illegal war
No they didn't - the fact that you falsely call it "illegal war" (it's not a war and it's completely legal) is owed solely to the organized effort of Democrat politicians and Democrat press. And it's working. It can't stop Trump - because, again, what he is doing is completely within his powers as the President and Commander of the military, so short of removing him from that position in some way, it is not possible to stop him from doing it - but it does what it intended to do, creates the false image of Trump violating the law.
JarJarJedi
7d ago
What you say is true, about the dangers and failure modes of it. But there's another aspect to it. Most modern people - and that comes equally for both men and women - don't have much experience being in physical confrontation and even less experience of being anything other than a helpless victim in that situation. I'm not talking about criminals steeped in violent street life or something like that, or professional fighters, most people on the street aren't like that. So the most common reaction for people in such a situation is absolute panic and rational brain shutdown. This is hard to avoid even for somebody who is well-trained, we all have mostly the same hardware after all, but for somebody without any physical conflict experience - which, in our modern world, is a lot of people - it will be a very major factor. Some self-defense training can reduce this reaction. Will it make a tiny woman be able to subdue a violent criminal twice her size? No, never. But maybe it can give her a chance to slip out, run away, hold out till the help comes, make enough noise, make herself more trouble than it's worth, etc. It's never equal chances, but it's some better chance. Of course, if the person is stupid and thinks having better chances means one has to take on more risks now - that's really self-defeating.
JarJarJedi
7d ago
10th Amendment
The one that was supposed to be the most powerful of them all and ended up being the most useless. We've got the concept of "enumerated rights" instead, which is a diametrical opposite of what 10th amendment says. The Federalists were absolutely right - they warned us this will happen, and it happened. Though without the Bill of Rights it probably would be even worse.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
I'm 185cm and 100+kg (yes, I know, sigh) and I've been doing Aikido for a while, and I've seen women than could unbalance me reliably. If they know what they are doing, it's definitely possible, and strength has very little to do with it, more speed and precision. Of course, BJJ has very different modality, Aikido techniques usually end where BJJ is beginning :) And yes, somebody who did not practice maintaining balance is usually really easy to unbalance and really uncomfortable when the balance is broken - it's one of the challenges when working with novices, they do weirdest things when the balance is gone.
Reading your updates makes me want to try BJJ though the prospect of abject humiliation is always mildly daunting.
I don't think "humiliation" should be a part of it. I mean, if you didn't do BJJ what you expect to happen when you come to the practice first? Of course everybody would be better than you - I mean, if they aren't, you should seek another place to practice, since here people obviously are wasting their time! So, there's nothing humiliating in it - it's like if you tried to learn Japanese and discovered after a week you are not good at it yet. If you practiced for 10 years and kept losing to everybody, that'd be humiliating. But as a beginner, literally nothing - at least nothing related to not being good in BJJ - should be humiliating.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
a point for women in the battle of the sexes: there is a point at which a woman can submit me, if I'm not at least a little careful.
Isn't the whole point of martial arts (at least some technical ones, like BJJ) to make this possible? I mean, if it were all Grogg smash and whoever has the best muscle wins and there's no possibility of the weaker partner to prevail at least sometimes at some point, then what would be the point of learning all those intricate techniques instead of just hitting the gym and eating the proteins or whatever is the recommended way of getting more Grogg smash in.
Surely, strength matters, so if you'd lose to a much weaker opponent all the time, you're probably doing something wrong (or they are extremely good). But getting it once in a while, when you didn't play full strength, by a choke (which - I don't practice BJJ but I can assume - is not supposed to be a strength-against-strength thing) is IMHO not very surprising.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
including our very own Scott Alexander have gotten in on the game by describing his platforming of alternative views as "dangerous" and "irresponsible".
Any chance anybody has a direct link to it? I am not surprised by people getting on the train to cancel somebody, for a while, but I thought Scott would know better, given his own history with cancel mobs.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
I've heard this being said, well, everywhere since late 2024 at least. It's kind of an obvious point to make, so a lot of people made it.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
As far as I know, they did not, and continued to use cannabis despite the loss of this case. Eventually the policy of USDOJ changed to a less insane one towards medical marijuana patients (thanks Obama), so the feds stopped harassing them. The SCOTUS decision, however, remains as another milestone in the long road from the limited federalist government to "you got only the rights that the feds want to give to you".
JarJarJedi
9d ago
Thank you! I haven't remembered all the details from 20 years ago (the anniversary this month!). Re-reading it, the especially evil part is that the weed in question was absolutely undoubtedly for personal consumption, to treat a severe debilitating condition, with medical approval and supervision, allowed by state law - and yet Feds were absolutely adamant torturing a couple of women to death is what is right and proper to do.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
That "interstate commerce" stuff has been going for a while now. I remember a case where a guy grew weed on his own backyard, and was prosecuted under "interstate commerce" with the logic somewhat like: if you grow it, then you would consume it or sell it. If you'd consume it, you wouldn't buy any other weed on the market, and if you sell it, you participate in the weed market. Since weed is sold and transported across the state lines, participating in the weed market influences interstate commerce, therefore the interstate commerce clause gives the state power to regulate what you grow on your own backyard and smoke in your own house. Yeah, it's nuts and nobody cares. Welcome to the clown world, we have cookies.
JarJarJedi
11d ago
This is just a payment-processing system, not a whole new currency.
Yes, but if the processing system uses dollars and US banks (or banks that eventually connect to US banks) then US can control it. Dealing with a ton of different currency without having an intermediary one where you can align everything to the single common measure could be challenging...
PAPSS's governing council appears to be populated by the top officials of the central banks of its member countries.
Yes, of course, but what happens if there is a conflict between them? Say, one government has a lucrative trade in goods that are frowned upon by other governments, and wants to use this system to facilitate it? What if two members have a fight and try to block (or steal) each other's payments?
JarJarJedi
11d ago
It is understandable that they may have different interests than the US, and thus want a monetary system that can not be controlled by the US. The question is, who will be controlling it then? Somehow I doubt it being controlled by Zambia or South Africa or any other African state would be better for the long-term perspectives of it, and in general African states - especially ones that are located close and thus most in need of common currency system - aren't best known for always valuing cooperation over conflict. Of course, they could elect China or Russia or Iran to be their master - but why exactly would that play better for them than the US?
They could try to implement a truly decentralized zero-trust system, but given as nobody really done it on the national scale, I'm not sure they have the expertise or the guts to try it. Would be an interesting experiment though, but there are so many failure modes there that it could only be of any value if successful.
a $200 million trade between two parties in different African countries is estimated to cost 10% to 30% of the value of the deal.
That sounds horrendously expensive. I wonder is that because of the risks? Then of course homegrown systems would be cheaper - by just ignoring the risks, until the next rugpull.
JarJarJedi
11d ago
Re-read The Left Hand of Darkness which I had read a very long time ago and remembered almost nothing from that time, so it can be counted as the first reading essentially. This novel is well known for it's exploration of gender topics, which got me interested in how it would read in 2025, being written in 1969. It actually read quite well. Since then, a lot of efforts have been made - including, unfortunately, by Le Guin herself - to make the novel be more woke then the text would support, but it did not ruin it for me (one of the reasons being I only read most the commentary after finishing the novel). Wikipedia's description of it is one of the examples of such wokification, which is as expected, and serves as another warning, if one still needs it, that trusting an anonymous woke mob to pre-chew your information for you may be convenient, but has significant dangers. I don't think I agree with all the ideas implied in the book (like "wars are caused by male hormones") but I found reading it and thinking about it enjoyable.
JarJarJedi
12d ago
Thank you for this thoughtful and well argued observation.
That depends a lot on where you live and how you use it. In the summer in place where it never rains you can get away with pretty much never washing it. In winter, especially if you drive in the snow, it gets filthy really quick. I usually go to a wash when I notice visible dirt on it, and usually just a run in automatic wash is enough. Occasionally when I take a longer trip (those darn bugs) I have to manually clean it with a rag pre and post the automatic part. Never found any special ritual meaning in it, it's just a chore for me.
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