JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
Some times Charlie was in the trees.
User ID: 4009
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
The liberal media narrative about how Trump is this huge narcist who wants to surround himself with a bunch of sycophantic yes-men but he's just such a poor judge of character that he keeps hiring habitual contrarians and competitive alpha-dog types (Mattis, Bannon, Flynn, Rubio, Vance, Et Al) entirely by mistake will never not be funny to me.
My overarching concern has been that his 'movement' is so tied up in his ego it isn't clear if it CAN move on to anyone else once he's out of office, and that will be a major problem if there's no clear successor.
It's not though, or at least that's not what I see.
Trump is not the center of the MAGA movement as much as he is "the face", this a big part of why he has had a decidedly mixed record when it comes to endorsing other candidates. Trump isn't "wearing the Republican party like skinsuit" so much as he is the brick that the electorate has chosen to throw through the establishment's window.
Additionally I feel like Trump has been actually been pretty good about setting up potential successors for success both within his own family (IE Kushner and Don Jr) and the wider party (IE Vance, and Rubio)
The question is not whether Xi is brighter than Trump the question is whether Xi is brighter than Putin.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
I do not believe that Ukraine is being "allowed" anything, I think they are taking what they can get and this is turning out to be awkward for a lot of people because because a lot of their core beliefs about the nature of power are getting falsified in real time.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
Then, I have to say I am somewhat confused. I would assume that ICE would enforce deportation warrants nationwide. So why the focus of the cities which voted Harris?
I find it difficult to believe that this question is being asked in good faith.
ICE is being deployed to so-called "sanctuary cities" like Minneapolis and NYC for the same reason federal troops were deployed to Alabama and not Idaho when it came time to enforce desegregation. A state that is already complying with federal law does not require federal troops to enforce compliance.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
This is how immigrants have always viewed the USA
IF I agreed with your supposition, my reply would be something to the effect of "something being the status quo does not make it desirable", but I don't agree with your supposition because in my mind there is a qualitative difference between the sort of person who crosses an ocean at great risk understanding that they are effectively cutting all ties with their previous life to start anew, and the sort of person who emigrates with the explicit goal of sending money "home".
Again, It is that sense of one's "real heart-allegiance" that I feel is sorely missing from much of the modern immigration debate.
Nationalism can't stand up long-term against urban-globalist atomization...
...and Ukraine has been less than a week from collapse for over three (almost 4) years now. The great irony of claiming that nationalism can't stand up to "urban-globalist atomization" to an citizen of the US is that the founding of the United States was in many respects a rejection of globalism. A recognition in the wake of the Seven Years' War on the part of Anglo, Dutch, French, and Spanish colonists in North America that their interests as colonists were much more aligned with each other than they were with their respective global empires. That many years later the US would become of a global empire itself is neither here nor there. See the old line about how when fighting monsters, one must be careful not to become one.
But even if I take your claims at face value. A freight train is a thoroughly artificial construct cobbled together from a bunch of disparate and often unrelated pieces. Stopping to argue the point on a level-crossing is still an invitation to get smashed flat. You are free to assert that the idea of a national identity is fake and cringe, but that doesn't mean you're right and I'm wrong. It just means that you have chosen to stand in "the blue corner" with all the other liberals and post-modernists.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
2mo ago
I would argue that genetics is entirely downstream of culture because cultural circumstances determine what genes get passed to the next generation.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
2mo ago
I kind of took half-hearted stab at it in my reply to @Skibboleth but lets go deeper.
Things that are particular to the culture of the United States:
Football, Baseball, Basketball, Apple Pie, Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Hot Wings, Cowboys, Cadillacs, pick-up trucks, SUVs, the Stars and Stripes, John Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Lee, the Apollo Program, the Panama Canal, public displays of Christianity, being prudish about sex, being libertine about guns and drugs, eating Turkey on the 4th Friday of every November, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence (not necessarily in that order)
Slightly more seriously, our core mythos is that of "the grand frontier." We are the children of explorers and pioneers who crossed oceans and deserts at great risk to escape the old world and find the land of opportunity. This mythos feeds something of an independent streak compared to a lot of other cultures. Ask three Americans a question and you'll get five different answers. We think we know better and are not shy about saying it. We also tend to prioritize being "friendly" over being "polite" which is the opposite of what you see in much of Europe and Asia.
No our enemies do not hate us "because we're too cool", they hate us for geopolitical reasons that are completely outside the average American's control. Which just begs the question, why should the average American care what the haters think?
You say that TR was mistaken, I disagree, the idea that a man can not serve two masters, or have more than one "top priority" has held true since classical antiquity and remains relevant today.
You say that I am conflating American culture with the culture of the South, and I again I disagree because I don't see Public displays of Christianity or eating Turkey on the 4th Thursday of November each year as uniquely "southern" artifacts. Nor Football, Baseball, Basketball, Apple Pie, Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Hot Wings, Cowboys, Cadillacs, pick-up trucks, SUVs, American Flags, John Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Lee, and so on...
That said, they do tend to code as "red"/Republican in the modern era. But that is not because of anything intrinsic that because for the last 50 years (since the late 70s or so) the American left has largely defined itself by through it's opposition to the shared symbols and mythos of the American identity. The Founding Fathers owned slaves and MLK was an Adulterer. The US was founded in 1619 on the principles of colonial exploitation. Not in 1776 on the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence. The constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper. All heroes must be toppled, all myths busted, all boundaries removed, and all barriers knocked down. That is the quintessence of the modern American liberal.
I would posit that the reason Liberally-minded people find Trump to be so "Loathsome", "Stupid", and "Declassee" is that he talks like an average American, he thinks like an average American, he like the things that the average American likes, and that for a lot of people that is simply not acceptable coming from someone who is supposed to be "above them" in social station.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
2mo ago
Personally I am less concerned with the virtues that the founders of America were purported to hold in high regard, than I am with the virtues that they displayed. Humble, civil, temperate men would not have committed treason against the crown by fomenting a rebellion. Integrity? Yes I would agree that on the balance, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were men of integrity though I imagine that many of their loyalist compatriots would have disagreed. As for honesty, Trump's unabashed honesty is arguably the single biggest reason people vote for him. If you ask a Trump voter what they like most about him, more often than not you will get an answer to the effect of "Because he tells it like it is"
To clarify, I said "since the Cold War", not since WWII. Also, you say "any passing knowledge of America's founders, it's elder statesman, our civic religion more broadly and the virtues embodied therein puts lie to the notion Donald Trump could possible be some avatar of it." but what specific knowledge would that be?
I loved that commercial! Like it legitimately made me swell with pride to see someone talking up America.
It's iconic for a reason.
It's also important to remember that it came out in the middle of Obama's first term at the height of the "there's nothing exceptional about being American" push. Somebody in Cadillac's marketing department spotted a potential fault-line in the zeitgeist and shot their shot. I for one am glad that they did even if I was never going to buy an ELR.
Pretty much everywhere I've ever worked outside of California has treated Labor-Day as a 4 - 5 day weekend, EG Thursday or Friday through Monday and most people who have flexible PTO will take the rest of the preceding week off to give themselves an uninterrupted 10 days off.
Similar dynamic to that around Thanksgiving. If you know you're going to get Thursday and Friday "for free", you might as well spend some of your PTO to not come in Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and make a week of it.
Firstly, it is the top button that should always be buttoned on a two-button suit unless one intends to leave the jacket open. This is because the bottom button tends to ride below the natural waist and will thus cause the jacket to "ride up" when sitting down or standing up.
Secondly, if you're feeling provoked or triggered I'd say the commercial did it's job.
You don't get a week for Labor Day? What about two weeks paid vacation?
I would like to spotlight this comment by @urquan in last week's thread because it touches upon something that I feel warrants it's own discussion seperate from all of the drama surrounding the death of Renee Good. Specifically this line here...
My opinion is that most immigrants, legal and illegal, to the US are people who view it as an economic resource, not a country and a people with its own customs and values that should be respected. I want people to come to my country because they share my love for it and want to make it their home, not because they see dollar signs.
Over the years I have often heard cosmopolitan liberals express a sentiment to the effect "the United States has no culture". I used to find this deeply frustrating, and even as a teenager it seemed obvious to me that there were clear cultural distinctions between the East Coast and West Coast, North and South, never mind between the US and UK or the US and France. We have an entire host of uniquely American, myths, stories, heroes, sports, holidays, figures of speech, etc... How could anyone be so blind as to think that the United States has no culture? It was as I got older that I came to understand that what they really meant was something more like "the United States has no culture worthy of consideration". The more I think about it, the more I think it is this distinction that the modern culture war is really being fought over.
In the blue corner we have liberals and post-modernists who seem to view the idea of nationalism and a national identity as something distinct from one's political, racial, and sexual identity as either "fake and gay" or something to be deconstructed and dismantled. To the extent that the existence of a distinct American national identity is acknowledged, it is as something to feel embarrassed about and apologize for.
...and in the red corner we have this guy. Yes I am aware the commercial itself is for an electric car, but let's be real, its a Cadillac, and I think we all know who that character would have voted for in 2024.
This ties into the rest of @urquan's post and what I see as the core appeal of Trump. I think that a large part of the reason that Trump evinces such strong reactions, both positive and negative, is that he gives off this vibe of being quintessentially capital-A AMERICAN in a way that I don't think any US President really has since the Cold War.
I have been accused of "trolling" and "rage-baiting" by users here for quoting Teddy Roosevelt's "Hyphenated-American" speech, but its something I stand by, and that I feel bears repeating.
There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.
This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as anyone else.
The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic.
The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.
- Theodore Roosevelt Addressing the Knights of Columbus, October 12th, 1915
It is that sense of one's real heart-allegiance that I feel is sorely missing from much of the modern immigration debate.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
2mo ago
Or to put it another way, the Constitution required a particular set of beliefs to function. Those beliefs were fundamentally mistaken about core elements of human nature, the fact that they were mistaken has become common knowledge, and so now it is impossible for reasonable people to actually hold them.
I do not believe that this is true at all. Those beliefs were not "mistaken about core elements of human nature" so much as John Adams was correct when he observed that Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
It was not an "accident" the word accident would imply that there is no one is at fault.
There's a legal principle that the mental state for the commission of one wrong can substitute for the mental state of another. So if you are robbing a store and you accidentally shoot someone, that's treated as murder.
While the specifics vary by jurisdiction, US law typically breaks Murder/Homicide into four levels or "degrees"
- First Degree Homicide: Intentional and premeditated infliction of injury leading to the death of another, IE the killer knew what they were doing and they purposefully set out to do it.
- Second Degree Homicide: Infliction of injury leading to the death of another that is not premeditated but committed in the process of some other criminal activity. EG a bank robber may not have set out with the intention of killing anyone, but if they get into a gunfight or car chase with the police and someone dies as a result, they are going to be on the hook for it.
- Third Degree Homicide: Infliction of injury leading to the death of another that was not premeditated nor committed in association any other crime. EG the old "Crime of passion" cliche. (Note: Some jurisdictions flip the 2nd and 3rd degrees)
- Fourth Degree Homicide/Manslaughter: Unintentional infliction of injury leading to the death of another.
What you're describing is basically the second degree. Does it apply in the specific case of Renee Good? I don't know, it seems like a bit of an edge case given the circumstances. However, I do feel like someone would have to be coming form a position of significant privilege and entitlement to not recognize "I might get shot by the cops" as a possible (perhaps even likely) outcome of trying to forcibly evade or resist arrest.
You've got your parties flipped.
The "white elite" are the ones trying to make a martyr out of Renee Good. They burned a huge amount of capital both political and physical to neutralize the populist movement in 2020, but somehow the populists returned even stronger than before and that is what this is all ultimately about.
ICE is enforcing the popular will in defiance of the preferences of white progressives and that is why Good and her partner were there trying to obstruct them.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
2mo ago
There comes a point where stupidity (or "depraved indifference" for that matter) is functionally indistinguishable from malice.
Not the OP, but at a minimum @EverythingIsFine seems to be under the impression that obstructing police and striking a police officer with one's car are not crimes that should warrant arrest, much less the deployment of lethal force.
Nothing else in their wall of text really makes much sense otherwise.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
2mo ago
To quote Ian Flemming, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence..." we shall see if there is a third incident.
I'm not sure, but anecdotally I have found that the tail ends of the IQ bell-curve tend to manifest themselves in broadly similar ways. High levels of neuroticism, short time preferences, lack of ability to self-regulate or exercise agency, a propensity for addictive and co-dependent behavior, and difficulty with things like object permanence and constructing functional theories of mind.
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