LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
No bio...
User ID: 657
It's technically true that Trump's 'retaliatory' tariffs aren't actually retaliatory, as most countries don't have tariffs on vast majority of US imports. However, there are other actual, tangible non-tariff trade barriers countries use, it's not just illusory 'Critical Trade Theory'.
Tariffs are considered archaic and stupid in our global WTO liberal free trade regime. But occasionally (or sometimes more than occasionally) states want to engage in protectionism. The way they get around this is by implementing non-tariffs trade barriers that have plausible deniability with other justifications. This is sometimes described as neo-mercantilism in academic literature. The European Union loves this, from geographical indicators to carbon border adjustment mechanism and other regulatory measures - all implemented for other goods, that just so happen to also protect their domestic industries as well (unintended side effect, of course). Though, the EU will sometimes resort to tariffs on short notice as well, such as to prevent Chinese state subsidised EVs flooding European markets - but that's justified as an anti-dumping measure - purely self defence.
And China bans imports of goods, out of deep concern for the safety of their citizens. They blocked imports of Australian rock lobster because of high levels of cadmium (no evidence ever confirmed) and periodic bans of imports of either Canadian or Australian canola over concerns of blackleg fungus contamination. Of course, China too used extortionate tariffs on Australian barley to protect themselves from Australian 'dumping' cheap barley in China. Damn, us pesky Australians! First we try to poison the Chinese with toxic lobster, then we try to destroy the domestic Chinese barley market! In a weird coincidence, concerns about cadmium disappeared the same time relations normalised with China post-COVID! What luck! And don't forget the China rare earths export ban and dispute in 2010-12, which was for the good of reducing pollution and conserving the resource. The fact it happened after a major maritime and diplomatic dispute with Japan is a coincidence, I'm sure.
For better or worse, Trump's approach is about as unsophisticated as you can get, just slapping tariffs on just about everyone and everything. See, in the enlightened WTO free trade order, you can't just put tariffs on things, that would break WTO rules and free trade principles! No, instead what you're meant to do is provide some really-justified-for-other-reasons non-tariff measure to block export or imports, and then spend the next 5 years rules-lawyering how it doesn't violate the 'international rule based order' after which time the outcome of the dispute doesn't even matter, if someone even bothers to challenge it, that is.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
8mo ago
she was ponderously slow to realize Assad was an asshole, and remained skeptical that he used chemical weapons after.
Assad is an asshole, but my understanding is that the evidence he used chemical weapons is actually quite weak and possibly false intelligence. And it's not like the US and her allies and the international community more broadly have never lied about Middle Eastern dictatorships doing bad things for propaganda.
But it has been a long while since I've looked into this all.
I wanted the woke to be defeated by classical liberals.
We could debate all the fundamental philosophical problems of liberalism (classical or otherwise), but what I think is the more pressing problem with this attitude of simply wanting to return to "90s liberalism" which seems to be espoused by many figures is that they make no effort to explain that even if somehow liberalism defeats woke and we all become good liberals again, how will liberalism not immediately give rise to woke again. Woke, if not liberal itself, arose in the conditions of liberalism. Why wouldn't it do it again? Even if you're a 'classical liberal' rather than a '90s liberal' (social liberal) it's just delaying the problem slightly longer.
Ironically, despite the contemporary right-wing movements often being accused of being reactionary, it's really the anti-woke liberals who are reactionary in the quite literal and plain meaning of the word. They think we can just turn back the clock on political and philosophical development of the last thirty, fourty, fifty years and (re)establish a liberal utopia and the last fifteen years of woke will disappear forever like a bad dream, like it never happened. Remember, this 'SJW' 'woke' thing is just a fad that college kids will grow out of once they enter the real world.
Contemporary right-wing thought doesn't do this. It's decidedly post-liberal, not liberal or pre-liberal. It has, with maybe a few exceptions, fully embraced that liberalism has had its political moment, it has failed and the question is how to address those failures. The dialectic has progessed, one might say. Even the ironically named 'neo-reactionaries' aren't really reactionary in any meaningful sense, other than just borrowing basic, well-worn concepts from eons past. Their politics are still clearly post-liberal. I would even argue 'MAGA' (insofar it is a coherent political movement) is post-liberal, again despite the ironic name.
So my question to all those who just want to 'retvrn' to the liberalism of decades past - how to you plan to address or reform liberalism so it will won't cause woke again? What do you acknowledge are its problems? How would your changes keep the essence of liberalism so despite the changes it could still meaningfully be called liberalism? How would it not just be simply nostalgia for a past that can never be returned to, if it existed at all?
China's One Child Policy is the worst, most destructive government (social) policy in history and clearly shows the danger of Malthusian thought put into practice. The effects of the One Child Policy have been ruinous for China, not just for economic reasons (including dependency ratio), but for so may other reasons, including indirectly causing China's gender imbalance, decline of relationships and family, and the social malaise and stagnation that occurs when the elderly outnumber the youth, a highly unnatural and disordered state of affairs.
I strongly believe that despite all the both morally and economically awful things the CCP has done, it is the One Child Policy and the One Child Policy essentially alone that stopped the 'rise of China'. If it were not for the One Child Policy, China would be the clear number one superpower now, rather that floundering behind (despite all its own faults) the surprisingly resilient US. Or at the very least, China would still be ascendant rather than the rapid descent that is waiting for China around the corner.
While it's true that China would be experiencing some effects of the demographic transition today regardless of the One Child Policy, and that these problems are not unique to China, as in both the West and China's developed Asian neighbours, the One Child Policy accelerated China's demographic transition to such a degree that China's demographics are comparable to RoK, Japan and Taiwan, despite those countries having a 20-40 year head start on the demographic transition caused by economic development, depending on how you count it. China's current fertility rate (approx. 1.1) is worse than Japan's (approx. 1.2), similar to Taiwan, and slightly better than RoK (approx. 0.75). And this is without considering the reliability of China's numbers, given that the CCP has a tendency to "mistakenly" inflate their population numbers, the situation may well be much worse than is reported.
Unfortunately, despite all evidence pointing to Malthusian thought being completely and utterly wrong (as well as deeply immoral, in my judgement), it is still heavily influential in both academic and popular though, if bolstered by a pervasive anti-natalist, anti-humanist Zeitgeist. I know I might be preaching to the converted here, but the fertility/demographic crisis is the most significant civilisational crisis, and the mainstream political class and intelligentsia are only just beginning to grasp the enormous problem that we are facing. But I doubt they will face much success in addressing it, as any solution to the problem will necessarily require a repudiation of the modernist individualism which the global political class and intelligentsia currently exist in.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
7mo ago
This is a genocide, as leading expert scholars and institutions have been saying for months.
I really hate these weasel words, you see this all the time. It's also true to say "this isn't a genocide, as leading expert scholars and institutions have been saying for month." Because clearly there is strongly differing opinions on this controversial major international conflict. But I suppose "this is or isn't a genocide depending on which experts you ask to support your politicial position" isn't particularly useful to the purpose of the letter.
And I say this as somone who is probably more favourable to the Palestinians than most people here.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
6mo ago
According to the 2021 Canadian Census, over a quarter of Canada's population (pemanent residents and citizens) are first generation immigrants. Based on immigration trends, that number is likely at or approaching a third as of 2025. Mind you, this number does not include immigrants who are on "temporary" visas.
Utter insanity.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
2mo ago
Copying an old comment of mine from the old place.
I think a very strong case can be made that the New Left, and its subsequent and related movements in the academic left particularly queer theory, is pro-pedophilia (eventually filtering down to the 'woke' public in watered down form). To be more charitable, it's not that they are pro-pedophile per se, but rather that they have adopted a world view that doesn't make a distinction between pedophilia and non-pedophilia. The aim to is "deconstruct" sex, gender, sexuality, race and so on. Why would one expect them to stop there and not deconstruct adult and child? In many cases, this is what they explicitly want to do. Some might say this is a 'slippery slope' fallacy, but I think Newton's First Law is an appropriate analogy. One might argue it is the logical conclusion of left academic theory (that is, the critical theories prominent in academia).
It's probably best to use some examples.
John Money, a psychologist and sexologist, with a background in pediatrics, active in the 50s and 60s. John Money is notable for being one of, if not the first person to theorize a distinction between sex and gender, and was the academic who introduced the term 'gender identity' and has been highly influential in the development of sex and gender theory. What is less well know about Money is some of his extremely unethical practices, including the infamous case of David Reimer. When Reimer was born, he was subjected to a botched circumcision that destroyed his penis. On the advice of Money, Reimer's parents subjected Reimer to sex change (as a baby) and raised him as a girl. As part of the therapy, he would make Reimer and his twin brother engage in mock sexual activity, including making them strip for 'inspections' and taking photos. Money claimed that these activities were essential for the development of a healthy adult gender and sexual identity. The case of Reimer was long held up as evidence in support of Money's and later ideas of gender identity and the distinction of sex and gender. David Reimer would "de-transition" later in his teens. Both David and his twin brother Brian would commit suicide in their thirties.
In the 1960s to 1990s, influential German psychologist, sexologist and sex educator Hemlut Kentler ran an experiment with government support where he would put young children as foster children with known pedophiles and encourage sexual activity. Kentler had strong tied to left-wing intellectual circles and believed that 'sexual repression' was the key driver of fascist ideology.
Shulamith Firestone, radical feminist and author of The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. In the book, she makes four demands for an authentic feminist revolution. Number three is for 'the total integration of women and children into all aspects of larger society' (by this she means the removal of any cultural distinction between men/women and adult/child). Number four is for 'the freedom of all women and children to do whatever they wish to do sexually'.
In 1977, a group of French left or left associated intellectuals signed a petition to the French government asking them abolish the age of consent in France. The signatories include some extremely significant and influential names, including Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean-François Lyotard. I should point out that there is strong evidence is that Michel Foucault was a pedophile, and regularly made trips to Tunisia to abuse young boys there. One has to wonder how this relates to his work in postmodernism.
There's Gayle Rubin's 1984 essay Thinking Sex, considered a foundational text for gay and lesbian studies, gender studies and queer theory. In Thinking Sex, Rubin defends pedophilia (and incest as it happens). It's hard to get a direct quote (you can read the essay yourself) as the language is expectedly obtuse, but it is the logical conclusion of what she is arguing. For example:
It is harder for most people to sympathize with actual boy-lovers. Like communists and homosexuals in the 1950s, boylovers are so stigmatized that it is difficult to find defenders for their civil liberties, let alone for their erotic orientation. Consequently, the police have feasted on them. Local police, the FBI, and watchdog postal inspectors have joined to build a huge apparatus whose sole aim is to wipe out the community of men who love underaged youth. In twenty years or so, when some of the smoke has cleared, it will be much easier to show that these men have been the victims of a savage and undeserved witch hunt.
Rubin, and many academic leftists like and since her, want to deconstruct the concept of childhood innocence, seeing it yet another part of the oppressive system we find ourself in. I should point out, the Motte and Bailey is particularly strong here.
There's of course, Judith Butler, the queer theorist who needs no introduction. What Judith Butler means can be hard to actually decern, but here's a choice quote from her 2004 book 'Undoing Gender':
It is not necessary to figure parent-child incest as a unilateral impingement on the child by the parent, since whatever impingement takes place will also be registered within the sphere of fantasy. In fact, to understand the violation that incest can be—and also to distinguish between those occasions of incest that are violation and those that are not—it is unnecessary to figure the body of the child exclusively as a surface imposed upon from the outside. The fear, of course, is that if it emerges that the child’s desire has been exploited or incited by incest, this will somehow detract from our understanding of parent-child incest as a violation. The reification of the child’s body as passive surface would thus constitute, at a theoretical level, a further deprivation of the child: the deprivation of psychic life.
Which fits into my initial description - it's not that the 'academic left' (or critical left or whatever term you want to use) are pro-pedophile per se, but rather they believe in deconstructing sexual norms in such a way that pedophile becomes a meaningless concept (and one might say, intentionally or unintentionally giving pedophiles free license to operate). These are just examples, but you can find many other academics arguing the same or similar. A large part of it goes back to Herbert Marcuse's Eros and Civilization, which basically argues through a Freudian-Marxist synthesis that our natural desires and impulses are suppressed by the capitalist system in order to funnel them into productive work (which no one actually wants to do), and therefore liberation from capitalism but necessarily include the liberation and expression of these desires, with of course, an emphasis on sexual desire.
But surely these are just kooky academics with insane theories that would never actually have any real-world consequences (regardless of how crazy influential they are), right? That normal people (that is, leftists) would never actually implement these kinds of things in a practical manner, right? Well these theories do seem to have effect, least of all in (critical) pedagogy. In particular, sex education does seem to have been affected by these theories, at least in the US. One example is the book 'Gender Queer: A Memoir', the subject of recent controversy, becoming standard in curriculum and libraries for many schools, and is aimed at pre-teens. The book contains extremely graphic (drawn) images, including a blowjob and sex scenes. You can search for the images yourself.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
6mo ago
Holy shit.
I'm a lukewarm (non-American) supporter of Trump, but this is genuinely impressive to me. Even if he can't resolve the situation completely, the fact he can progress some kind of resolution at all at this time is amazing.
Honestly if this is true and succeeds, this might be the single thing that has raised my opinion of Trump the most. He's not even in office yet!
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
9mo 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).
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
5mo ago
But Trump is not in the same position as the average American. He’s overweight or slightly obese, giving him a higher share of the risk for heart disease and stroke.
Sounds like the average American to me. Not actually joking - life expectancy already factors in the fact that most Americans are overweight/obese.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
3mo ago
Israel was only 'against' the Iraq War insofar that they wanted the US to invade Iran first. The Bush admin said they'd do Iraq and Afghanistan quickly before Iran, who would similarly be a cake walk. Well, we know how that turned out. Israel still wanted the US to invade the whole Middle East (on their behalf) in the long run anyway, they just disagreed about the order.
Sounds like Trump wants to turn Gaza into a kind of international zone of centuries past (maybe post war occupation Japan is a better analogy)? Honestly, not a terrible idea when compared with every other option available. Of course, it can easily go horribly horribly wrong but literally every other idea seems equally likely to be horrible.
shortly after calling for the permanent displacement of the Strip's residents.
I hate hate hate modern journalism. At no point (at least based on the words actually said as reported in article) does Trump actually call for displacement of Palestinians. He is calling for the construction of an international zone in Gaza, which will include the local Palestinians. He is also calling for the creation of something like special economic zones for Gazan migrants in nearby (?) countries, this is honestly super unclear.
Trump is calling for a loss of sovereignity for Gazan and its inhabitants, which is arguably a bad thing (depending on your perspective), but at no point is he straight up calling for displacement. And honestly, Gaza has limited sovereignty anyway, and what sovereignty they do have is largely exerted by a terrorist group.
This is a response to both the above and @PyotrVerkhovensky's below comments on tariffs.
Some 30-odd years ago, economists had a proposition for the American people, and the West and the global economy at large, that went something like this:
Trade liberalisation is fantastic. It will bring massive economic growth, cheap consumer goods for all! Now, all these free trade agreements might have the negative impact of hollowing out America's (and the West's) industial base as all manufacturing and its associated blue collar jobs move overseas, but don't worry! Some of the massive economic gains from trade liberalisation can be captured and used to help blue collar communities 'adjust' to this economic change but helping them to reskill into other industries, such as ERROR:Undefined. Everybody wins! Plus, liberalising trade with China will help them liberalise politically as well. Pax Americana will live on!
Obviously, this didn't come to pass - at the very least, the claims that the negative repercussions of trade liberalisation will be offset by capturing some of the economic gain didn't happen, as Western deindustrialisation and the Rust Belt is testament to. What's more, economists rarely consider social impacts, especially second and third order effects. Deaths of despair and the social decline of middle America wasn't considered a possibility. A few economists may give lip service to social issues, but ultimately they can be resolved with economic solutions. Never mind that the wealth generated by trade liberalisation was highly concentrated by a minority of elites concentrated in financial centres and not widely distributed, cheap plasma TVs be damned.
I think the strongest argument in favour of tariffs (in the broad sense, not necessarily Trump's implementation) flips the free trade argument on its head - rather than middle American manufacturing being sacrificed for the good of abstract macroeconomic growth and GDP, abstract macroeconomic growth and GDP should be sacrificed for middle American manufacturing. Why were blue collar workers expected to sacrifice their livelihoods for the benefit of financial markets back in the 90s, but we shouldn't expect financial markets to sacrifice some of their growth for the well-being of blue collar workers now?
The question that is often forgotten in economic policy debates is who is the economy for? Too often do economists, policy makers and the media alike forget that the economy is a means, not an end, and that abstract GDP growth is not necessarily the goal that should be pursued, especially when that growth can come at the expense of the social well-being of the population, even if the insistence is that it will always benefit everyone.
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
1mo ago
Israel would have almost exactly the same national security interests and likely strategic patterns of behavior even if it had no element of racial-supremacist Abrahamic cult-myths, though.
Israel would never had existed if they didn't have that though.
Marxism intends to overthrow capitalism. America is still capitalist. Therefore, Marxism has had no impact on American society.
Feminism intended to make women happy. Women are less happy. Therefore, feminism did not achieve anything or cause any changes on society.
How is your comment not anything other than a post hoc fallacy?
You're not actually refuting the central claim that there is a strong current in contemporary leftist thought (critical theory, post-modernism, queer theory) that is okay with exposing children to sexual material or activities, or at the very least actively want to demolish barriers that prevent that from happening - the distinction between child and adult, the concept of childhood innocence.
The New Atheists thought that by demolishing religion, they would usher in an age of rational utopia. Instead they got new pseudo-religions. The sex/gender abolitionists thought they would usher in a sex (in both means of the term) utopia. Instead we have sexual chaos. The claim of the leftists is quite literally 'free love', to put it in a simple term, not sexlessness you claim the only way you get sexlessness is if you go so deep down the rabbithole where you deconstruct every the very concept of sex doesn't exist - but then sexlessness also doesn't exist.
I would suggest the reason pedophilia hasn't taken off despite it's presence in leftwing thought is that it is so intrinsically and self-evidently evil and disordered that most people can't and won't accept it even when they might accept other elements of the ideology in the abstract.
That being said, it's progressive - literally. Twenty years ago open political support for gay 'marriage' was unthinkable. Ten years ago, transgenderism was still a fringe concept. As disgusting as it is, and as much as people try to discredit the "slippery slope", it's not out of the realm of possibility to assume what the next step might be (if the leftists manage to retain unchecked power indefinitely)
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
3mo ago
Yes, that's my point. That there's a right way to do not-protectionism in the liberal trade rules based order. Trump's doing in protectionism with his tariffs the wrong way (to a extreme degree, I might add).
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
4mo ago
I suppose it's been memory-holed and vastly unpopular both here and in the mainstream media, but Ukraine did take many actions in the lead-up to the 2022 invasion and the 2014 invasion and the period inbetween that reflects poorly on them. They're not blameless for all this (although most blame goes to Russia and the US liberal foreign policy establishment for fucking with Ukraine). I'm not going to go into detail about each point but they include:
- Violating the terms of both the first and second Minsk agreements.
- Facilitating and arming pro-Ukrainian/anti-Russian militias who would continiously shell Russian communities in the Donbas even during periods of ceasefire (if you're willing to dig through UN Security Council records you can find Russia complaing about this in many, many meetings over many years - this is honestly a major factor than has been completely ignored/forgotten).
- Engaging in a cultural suppression of Russian communities in Ukraine, including the banning of the use of Russian in government, newspapers etc (also a perennial issue).
I have no lost love for Russia but it's been so dishonest how Ukraine over the past few years has been transformed in the media from a corrupt shithole to the bastion of European democracy (despite, you know, Zelenskyy destroying all his political opposition. If it wasn't for American and European interests meddling in Ukraine for the last two decades, this conflict would be indistinguishable from any other regional global conflict (India-Pakistan, Rwanda-Congo etc)
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
5mo 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
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.
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
5mo 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.
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.
The answer to virtually every "why is X industry/sector/institution woke?" is the same: It's the colleges and universities.
Every institution that wants or needs college graduates are getting people filling their ranks who have been subjected to four years of woke propaganda. I would call it entryism, which it kind of is, except it doesn't take much to subvert an insitution when the overwhelming majority of your generational cohort already believes what you do. Every insitution that is not explicitly right-wing/conservative/anti-woke and requires college graduates is subjected to this. Turns out, a lot of insitutions meet this definition, including most of the important ones.
Even if the game developers themselves are mildy resistant to woke ideology on account of their nerdiness (a fact I am not convinced of, but for the sake of the argument), the HR, Payroll, Executive Support etc teams are all full of woke graduates.
I've said it before, but I probably should say it more. If you want to stop 'wokeness', you have to target the academy first and foremost. Otherwise, we are just going to keep reaching "peak wokeness" every year.
I remember a decade and more ago people - back when the woke were called "SJWs", people would just brush them off as silly college kids, it's just a college thing that won't affect the 'real' world. Turns out, those college graduates actually had to go somewhere after college.
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