LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
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User ID: 657
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
4mo ago
I think all of the reasona outlined contributed to at least some degree, but for me the one that has the most salience and is the dominant reason is definitely "the Male Feminist as a man seeking absolution".
Every card-carrying male feminist I'm known has been a sex pest. To clarify, by 'card carrying male feminist' I don't mean a general liberal man who says he's a feminist when I asked, I mean the man who will unprompted talk about 'women's issues' and will make sure everyone (especially the women' knows he is a feminist and one of the good ones. And by sex pest, I don't necessarily mean someone who has committed sexual assault (though they also count) but someone who constantly pesters (as the name suggests) women for dates, relationships, sex. Everytime he talks to any new women he's thinking about how he can manipulate get this woman to date him. He will literally ask out every women he meets.
I have known several men during that fit the above description (unfortunately so, as I have a visceral dislike of them).
The reason I think they fit the "seeking absolution" reason is because:
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They seems to intuit that their behaviour is not appropriate on some level
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Feminism as a religion gives them absolution by blaming their bad behaviour on an external force ("the patriarchy") rather than taking personal responsibility, where as most other religious or moral systems would demand more of them in taking personal responsibility. It also allows them to project their bad behaviour on other men to minimise their culpability ("it's not just me, ALL men are like this.")
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Consent being the be-all-end-all for sexual ethics in feminism allows them to rationalise away the worst of their behaviour. They're not being inappropriate, creepy or overstepping boundaries, they're merely "seeking consent". I am reminded of that thread a while back here discussing a reddit thread about a literal virgin teenager asking a girl he studies with to be fuck buddies and being confused about her negative response.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
3mo ago
This is not speculation on my part. Israel did, in fact, ask the US to invade Iran first and not Iraq.
There's various sources for this including from US officials such as Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Colin Powell. It's also stated in Mearsheimer's Israel Lobby book from memory.
Here's the National Catholic Reporter arguing that Vance is wrong, but only rebutting a strawman.
The National Catholic Reporter is a liberal/progressive "Catholic" publication. They have and do promote political positions completely at odds with Catholic teaching, including defence of abortion and IVF, among many other things. To the point where bishops have called on them to remove Catholic from their name. I wouldn't take them as representative of the faithul Catholic position. It's in their interest to misrepresent Vance. This is the polite way of describing the NCR.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
2mo ago
I don't use social media that much and don't intend to go dumpster diving just to fulfil your demand. That being said, I know there's at least a handful of "Breadtube" type 'influencers' who have made various comments about age of consent and the like. Any 'serious' leftist intellectual is not going to put their thoughts on social media, where they will and can be eviscerated by normies, they're going to put it in academic text hidden behind jargon which I have already shown.
20 years ago, open public support for gay 'marriage' was unthinkable. 10 years ago, transgenderism was a tiny, tiny fringe and mostly a joke.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
2mo ago
Sure, it blocks intra-EU competition, but the EU is effectively acting as a cabal here - Franch gets champagne, Greece gets feta, Italy gets prosecco and so on. They agree to not interfere with each other in exchange dor working together to impose the restrictions on the rest of the world.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
4mo ago
Scalia's dissent in Morrison v. Olson pretty much warns against this, but that's just a blatantly obvious example. The (over)expansion of bureaucracy generally is, by it's nature, mundane and hard to observe.
Seperation of church and state was never about protecting the state from religion, but protecting religion from the state. The former is a contemporary reimagining of the meaning of the seperation to suit political ends. Similarly, it was freedom of religion, not freedom from religion as has entered the popular lexicon.
As if the state ever needs protecting in this manner! Even if the state (or the people managing the state) does implicitly profess a religion, even a secular one, the principle of seperation of church and state means that the state couldn't impose its views on the genuine and legitimate free expression of religion on the people. Which is arguably is exactly what's happening in this situation.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
5mo ago
A fantastic comment I remember reading (I think it was back on Reddit?) was "all marriages are gay marriages now". It was about the increasingly meaningless of legal definition of marriage, or along those lines. If anyone has a link that would be appreciated.
My working, internal definition of woke is "the popularised form of Cultural Marxism, particularly its contemporary related and descendent theories and ideologies, including Intersectional Feminism, Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory."
Key features of woke include:
- The sorting of all social groups into oppressor or oppressed
- A belief in the blank slate, or that all disparities between groups are both socially determined and unjust
- A belief that all social relations and interactions are essentially dominated by power relations, if not exclusively so
- A rejection of any hierarchy of value, and that any such hierarchies are inherently oppressive
- Viewing identity or culture as a form of "property" to be dismantled and redistributed.
- Is subversive by nature (this is not an insult, but rather the a fact of how it operates by using existing political movements and institutions, typically liberal)
A key part of my definition that I emphasise is the fact it's a "popularised" form. That is to say, it is the less consistent and coherent form of a political ideology, adopted by the general population, rather than the form adopted by academics, political activists, political philosophers or others who might hold specific and more consistent form of those beliefs. In fact, I would say this is actually part of the tactic that makes woke subversive - the decoupling of the name of the popularised form of a political ideology from the name of its academic or philosophical origins. This is unusual and serves to obfuscate the philosophical origins of woke (quite successfully, I might add).
For example, there is both the popular and academic understanding of 'liberal' or 'conservative'. The average 'liberal' may very well not have the exact same beliefs as either John Locke or John Rawls, but we can recognise and it's generally understood as all belonging to the same philosophical traditions. When someone asks you to describe who are liberals, you can clearly point to and name all these things. No one would seriously suggest liberalism doesn't exist in the public because the average (social) liberal doesn't believe the exact same things as John Rawls. But this is exactly what when people who are defending wokeism by saying others can't define or point to people who are woke. Because woke is strictly a popular form and not pure, academic form which people can name and describe.
I saw some news articles online about this in Australia earlier today.
What I found really conspicious was that in virtually all the articles there was absolutely no description of the perpetrator of the stabbing other than 'man' or at best 'older man', which was the spark that cause the protest/riot (depending on your political persuasion). There was also no mention that I can recall of the perpetrator being tackled and restrained by a member of the public, and certainly not that he was Brazilian. You'd be forgiven for thinking that the crime was committed by an Irish native.
Except, of course, the second half of all these articles all quote a bunch of Irish politicians and other public figures condemning the riot as the actions of a hateful, far-right mob, or similar words to that effect. Which kind of gives the game away. Do they think by merely mentioning the background of the stabbing perpetrator they will give credance to the 'hateful far-right riot', like invoking a spirit?
It's one of many cases where the news media (at least here in Australia), technically report the story factually accurately, but but omits some details and is framed in such a way to only lead you to one conclusion. They can avoid claims of editorialising by claiming they are merely quoting and reporting on statements made by politicians, which is also true.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
6mo ago
Joining the inevitable chorus of 'it's always the post I write quickly in [un-ideal state] that gets QC'd.' For me, it was writing a rambling post about China's One Child Policy when I was tired on public transport going home from work. Though anti-natalism is something I hate with a burning passion so good combination I suppose even if I don't think it's the best thing I even wrote.
I think there's probably something to be said for writing a post under un-ideal circumstances straight from the heart rather than trying to manicure the perfect post.
I used to be far more active on the Motte, but have sunken back into semi-lurker status as life has gotten in the way. Maybe this is a sign for New Years resolution to become more active with commenting again.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
8mo ago
From memory, Russia never put in a formal application to NATO, but it wasn't just a sarcastic quip. You could probably debate the sincerity of the interest of Russia joining NATO, but it definitely wasn't an prima facie sarcastic suggestion.
You have to remember the geopolitical context at the time. Russia was a newly "liberal" country after the collapse of the Soviet Union only a decade ago, and while significant tension did still exist between USA and Russia (particularly relating to NATO's involvement in the Yugoslav Wars), relations between the two was much more optimistic that is now or has been recently.
9/11 presented a reasonable opportunity for a genuine, renewed, positive relationship between Russia and USA. One thing that Russia and the US have in common (even to this day) is dealing with Islamism/Islamic terrorism, a threat to both nations. Russia had been, and has been, constantly dealing with Islamic terrorism within its own borders long before 9/11, and could reasonable see opportunity for US cooperation and support post 9/11 (it actually did happen to a limited extent under much worse circumstances dealing with ISIS).
Articles like this infuriate me. I am a pretty mellow individual and it usually takes a lot to get me riled up, but feminist articles, particular those about "masculinity" (God I hate that word and how it's used to pathologise men) I just find so rage-inducing.
Like all feminist piece about masculinity, it's doomed to fail because they cannot contradict the core beliefs and assumptions of feminist theory, which is a major, if not core contributor to the problem the article is trying to address in the first place.
When the author talks about the protector and provider role, and fatherhood being the base for developing a new positive "masculinity", my immediate response is "just what the fuck do they think they think masculinity has been about for millennia?" The feminist answer of course, is that masculinity has historically and currently been about oppressing women. "Hegemonic" masculinity and related terms. Before feminists turned "patriarch" into a dirty word, it actually reflected the reality that historically family life has always formed a key part of male identity, and it wasn't oppressive!
Of course, the author can in no way put any responsibility on to women for the social breakdown - and if they do it admit it, it's a good thing! In fact the article tacitly admits to this by singing the praises of the working woman, but the solution is never an adjustment on the part of women, oh no no no, the solution is always that men have to do more, "be better", and remake themselves into the New Soviet Feminist Man if necessary. How can you expect to build or maintain a masculinity around fatherhood and family when feminism has spend the last 60 years demolishing the family and cheering on its demise? How can you expect men to put family and fatherhood first when women clearly aren't putting family and motherhood first. Someone reneged on the social arrangements around family, and it wasn't men. But apparently men are expected to build a new "masculinity" to try and plug the gaps that weren't created by them.
The end of the article had me rolling my eyes incredibly hard.
It is harder to be a man today, and in many ways, that is a good thing: Finally, the freer sex is being held to a higher standard.
Yeah, because men totally haven't been held to high standards in the past and have been "free" to do whatever they want throughout history. I'm not sure how we the readers are meant to square the circle with the claim that men are protectors and providers but are also "free".
The old script for masculinity might be on its way out. It’s time we replaced it with something better.
"Hey men, you know how masculinity has traditionally been built on men being protectors and providers? Well we feminists decided that actually didn't happen and you were all oppressive bastards who have to pay for the sins of your ancestors. But we now going to give you the opportunity to build a new "positive" masculinity that built upon being protectors and providers in a feminist friendly way! What does feminist friendly way mean? Well, it's kind of the same as before but this time women are under no obligation to reciprocate in any way! Hope you join us with building something better!"
There's something so insidiously evil about selling the cause of the problem as the solution. If only we had more feminism and men embraced it the problem will be solved. True feminism has never been tried! Gotta keep digging ourselves in that hole I guess.
What exactly do you charge them with? To be clear, while Gaetz threw the word "extortion" around, there is no extortion in this case. Extortion is when someone threatens to inflict harm unless they are paid.
I believe what OP is alleging/implying is that Greenberg may have made a false allegation against Gaetz in order to save his own skin (offer to point the finger at a juicy target of a Congressman to lessen his own sentence). The implication is that tbe FBI knows that this is a weak or bogus allegation, but proceed with the investigation anyway, or at least conclude as a result of the investigation that it is bogus.
McGee, who is contected to both the Federal Prosecutor's Office and the CIA, attempts to use this knowledge to blackmail the senior Gaetz (through Alford) to get money to rescue Levinson in exchange for using his connections to get the case dropped against the junior Gaetz.
I think most people would agree that "we will drop a bogus/weak case against you in exchange for money" amounts to extortion. Rephrased, it can be "give me money and I'll won't charge you". Even with a legitimate crime being prosecuted it can still amount to extortion, as it's clearly an attempt to violate the defendant's due process rights.
Especially in the case of a high profile figure like a Congressman, there doesn't even have to be a a charge or conviction, the mere reporting that a Congressman js being investigated can be extremely damaging, which is what happened here.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
2mo ago
The question is what do those names actually mean to consumers. At least here in Australia, names like 'feta' are fully genericised - they don't have to come from a particular region in Greece. This is true for a lot of names, though the EU has taken great pains to reverse this.
When a consumer goes to buy feta, what exactly are they looking for? If two products are virtually identicial, taste the same, same texture, but one happens to be made in Australia and one in Greece, do most consumers actually care? Do they just want a lower price (I'm sure some foodies will claim there are subtle but irreducible differences).
At what point does a name become genericised to the point of referring to a type of product, rather that than referring to the geographical origin of a product? Danish pastries certainly aren't just made in Denmark.
It is a legitimate criticism to say that a consumer might be looking for feta and not care if it's from either Australia or Greece, but EU geographical indicators hide Australia 'feta' from consumers as a potential option, and this constitutes protectionism.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
5mo ago
I am Spartacus!
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
5mo ago
Trump specifically mentions that Palestinians will be part of the 'international zone', though.
"I envision the world's people living there. You'll make it into an international, unbelievable place. The entire world will be there - Palestinians also - many people will live there. they tried the other for decades and decades, it's not gonna work.
International zones is history have typically been led by a major power, not literally the entire international community. Shanghai by the British and Americans, Tangiers by the French (with support from Britain and Spain) etc.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
5mo ago
Chinese value excellence.
A bizarre statement to make about the country that has sewer oil, tofu-dreg buildings, mass counterfeiting of products, extreme academic cheating, among other fraudulent practices.
I don't want to overstate the amount of fraudulent activity that occurs in China, but clearly China's version of "excellence" is a less virtuous and more selfish that how most people would use the term. "Results and personal gain at all costs, even if it's fraud" is certainly one way to define excellence.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
2yr ago
It's almost always framed in how it's bad for women though, typically 'college graduated women can't find husbands (because they will never marry down).'
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
2yr ago
I would like to bring attention to a small but significant culture war kerfuffle that occurred on Monday, during the Australian Parliament Senate Estimates.
For those of you who are not aware, Senate Estimates is a series of hearings held by the Senate standing committees originally meant to scrutinise the budget and spending of the executive government and its agencies (budget estimates), but in practice is used to scrutinise all activities of the executive government, not just budget and financing.
The exchange I want to discuss occurred on Monday 22 May earlier this week, when the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts (it's a weird combination I know) was being question by the Rural, Regional Affairs and Transport Committee.
In the exchange, Senator McKenzie and Senator Canavan (both Nationals) question Mr Jim Betts, the Secretary of the Department (i.e. the most senior (non-ministerial/partisan) public servant and head of the Department). The Senators question Mr Betts over an alleged event where Mr Betts wore a Black Power t-shirt during an official address to departmental staff. The exchange is too lengthy to quote the whole thing here, so I recommend everyone read the Hansard (transcript) of the exchange.
To summarise the exchange briefly, Mr Betts is questioned on whether he wore a Black Power t-shirt during an official department briefing, Mr Betts is evasive with his answers before it is revealed that the t-shirt in question contained an Aboriginal flag in clenched fist, he claims that the symbol is merely a symbol of "solidarity" with Aboriginal staff and that it has no relevance to Black Power, and continues to be evasive when pressed by the Senators on whether this constitutes a political statement breaching the standards of impartiality of the Australian Public Service. The exchange ends with Mr Betts essentially challenging the Senators to report him to the Australian Public Service Commission for breaching the code of conduct.
It's also difficult to convey the tone of the conversation (unfortunately, I don't believe the video recording of the hearing is yet online), but I have to point out that Mr Betts is dressed in a very casual short sleeve shirt and not a business suit (as would be appropriate for this event, as is sarcastically mentioned by Senator McKenzie), and is wearing a rainbow lanyard (as he will mention). Mr Betts talks in a very condescending but hushed and rushed tone, showing no respect for the Senators, and the Senators, for their part, talked in a generally aggressive, and particularly in Senator McKenzie's case, sarcastic tone.
The reason I wanted to highlight this exchange is because it highlights the woke institutional capture of Australian government institutions, though I suspect this is representative of countries in the Anglosphere. To make it abundantly clear, the clenched fist in Australia is absolutely a symbol of Black Power imported into Australia from America, and used by the "Black/Indigenous sovereignty" movement within Australia. Mr Betts would absolutely know this, and I feel fairly confident in saying he is outright lying here. In fact, the fist was prominently used last year when Senator Lidia Thorpe (radical left Indigenous activist) made the fist and called the Queen a coloniser during her swearing in ceremony, an event I discussed back on the old subreddit.
So the head of a major Australian Government Department (who is allegedly an anarcho-communist, an allegation he doesn't explicitly deny but merely sidesteps) wears t-shirt with a radically left-wing/woke symbol while addressing staff, and he feels reasonably confident that he is going to suffer no consequences for it. If this does not represent a capturing of an institution by woke ideology, I don't know what does. What I also find really interesting is how Mr Betts attempts to argue his way out the questioning by equating his black power t-shirt with his rainbow LGBT lanyard as just symbols of support and solidarity - a false equivalency because the black power symbol remains far more explicitly political in the way LGBT rainbow is not - but this attempted defence does seem to have some strength. But the conservative Nationals Senators were unable or unwilling to make the affirmative case that yes, LGBT lanyards and flags also do constitute a political statement. Even they had to dance around this issue. They have become so normalised and part of the 'new sensibility' that LGBT flags hanging in government offices is perfectly fine, and desirable even, it's simply about promoting a safe and inclusive culture and it is in no way political! (unless you oppose it then you're the one being political).
Manufacturing jobs stagnants in the 80s (despite population growth) and begins to decline in 90s onwards. The increase in output has largely been due to productivity gains - but the actual manufacturing output as a percentage of the US economy has continuously shrunk. All the graph you linked shows is that existing manufacturing has gotten more productive/more efficient, which is unsurprising. In fact, output has actually stagnanted over the last 20 years despite productivity growth.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
2mo ago
Is your objection to my use of the term 'Rust Belt', or the argument that the 80s/90s weren't critical turning point? I don't care about the former, the latter is statistically true - deindustrialisation was much more significant after then, then had occured previously.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
2yr ago
I guess moving theMotte off Reddit has proven itself more and more to be a good decision
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
6mo ago
There was a short thread discussing this issue while ago.
The short version is that Christians are obligated to act with charity and love to all people. However, that does not mean Christians shouldn't condemn the sins people have committed and treat them out harshly out of love (love is willing the good of the other - the good of the other may require some 'tough love'). This includes accepting there may be temporal consequences for sin (penance is built around this concept, but also consequences outside of penance). Additionally, there is a significant degree of prudential judgement Christians should excerise when it comes to determining genuine conversion or not. After all, Jesus warns against 'wolves in sheep's clothing' and false prophets more than once. False prophets easily extends to those who claim to have had an encounter with Christ (i.e. a conversion).
It's trivial (conceptually, if not practically) to structure your non-tariff trade barriers, such as the CBAM, to favour domestic producers over foreign imports - e.g. calculating emissions of imports in a unfavourable way. Indeed, the CBAM has been accused of doing just that. It also inherently favours domestic European goods due to the lower transport emissions and the fact the Europeans are trying to develop green industries. The Europeans of course argue this is simply a green policy, and this is merely leveling the playing field in the name of the environment. Maybe this true - but the fact it favours domestic industry must surely be a nice bonus.
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