Lewis
3mo ago
I don’t think “anti-racism” is the right term. I think you’re looking for “abolitionism.” It’s very possible to be an abolitionist and a racist at the same time. By today’s standards, pretty much every abolitionist at the time of the American Civil War was a racist of the worst kind.
Lewis
3mo ago
But that just goes back to institutional capture. What you’re essentially saying is that the protests are irrelevant and impotent, which, while quite possibly true, is a different problem from them being incompetently held.
Lewis
4mo ago
You might not tear down other people’s posters, but progressives do. They did it to the pro-life group on campus when I was a college student. They did it to “All Lives Matter” posters when that became an issue (and even got the progressive administrations to do it for them). They’ve done it to any number of student groups who tried to advertise a conservative speaker, after which they’ve often followed up with a heckler’s veto over the speech itself. Progressives, especially progressive college students and, increasingly, faculty, aren’t used to operating on a level playing field with their opponents.
Lewis
4mo ago
A couple of weeks ago, there was a discussion on the relative popularity of religious vs. secular Christmas songs on the radio. Every time I’ve been in the car since then, I’ve listened exclusively to two local radio stations that played nothing but Christmas music. One station switched back to its regular cycle of music the day after Christmas, and the other switched back today. Here were the results:
Out of 539 songs, just under a quarter were religious in nature, including instrumental-only recordings of religious songs, such as Mannheim Steamroller’s versions. Close to a fifth of the religious songs on one channel were Gospel versions of traditional Christmas carols. This surprised me, as I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single Gospel Christmas recording on the radio before, let alone so many. I didn’t time the songs and so can’t give an exact number, but I’d estimate that each Gospel song was two or two-and-a-half times as long as anything else.
Stores were a different matter. I didn’t hear any religious songs in any store I went to. I also didn’t hear any traditional recordings of secular songs either, just a bunch of fairly crap modern recordings of both traditional and new music.
What this means for the War on Christmas, I don’t know. I was a bit surprised at the low number of religious songs on the radio, but not completely shocked. I also imagine the numbers are probably different in other parts of the country, with the coasts presumably having the most secular music and the south having the most religious music.
Anyway, those are the numbers for one city in the Midwest, for what it’s worth.
Lewis
3mo ago
Those people work with a very loose definition of genocide.
Blame the U.N. Since 1948, it has defined genocide as
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
It also criminalizes “direct and public incitement to commit genocide” and “complicity in genocide.” Some of the speeches by Israeli politicians clearly fall afoul of the former, while, if what is happening in Gaza is a genocide, the United States’ actions would arguably fall afoul of the latter.
Lewis
3mo ago
I think @The_Nybbler has the right of this one. Are you familiar with the Rural Purge in 1970s television?
By 1966, industry executives were lamenting the lack of diversity in American television offerings and the dominance of rural-oriented programming on the Big Three television networks of the era, noting that "ratings indicate that the American public prefer hillbillies, cowboys, and spies".[4]
CBS vice president Michael Dann personally hated the rural-oriented programming he was airing (as did most television executives), but he kept the shows on the air in acknowledgement of their strong overall ratings, which he considered the most important measure of a program's success. Dann's superior, CBS president James T. Aubrey, likewise believed rural sitcoms were a crucial part of the network's formula for success, noting that at the time, advertisers wanted the audience that watched rural sitcoms.[5] Robert Wood, an incoming president of CBS, pressured Dann to cancel the rural programs. Dann was forced out shortly after his response to Wood: "Just because the people who buy refrigerators are between 26 and 35 and live in Scarsdale, you should not beam your programming only at them."[6]
All three of the major television networks, but especially CBS, cancelled popular, highly profitable programs for ideological and aesthetic reasons, and their oligarchical grasp on TV programming at the time meant that no one else was able to pick up the money they were leaving on the table.
Lewis
3mo ago
Indiana’s questionable. SSM was forced on the state by court order shortly before Obergefell, it has no legal protections for LGBT people seeking housing or accommodations, and it has Republican supermajorities in both houses. Missouri’s similar, as it also lacks LGBT protections and has Republican supermajorities. Kansas and Nebraska would probably be more likely to vote for it, but they have some of the same factors.
Texas would shock me, given how much its Republican governor and legislature have been leaning into the culture war. I think Tennessee and Arkansas would also very likely refuse to hold a vote, since, according to this site, barely over half the population of each state supports SSM, and I’m guessing support is substantially lower among the Republican base. Heck, I could see both states outright banning SSM if given the opportunity. Kentucky has a bit more public support for SSM, but I could easily its legislature sitting on the issue as well.
One important thing to consider is that no state would even need to hold a vote on the issue. If the legislature just doesn’t discuss it, nothing happens. And in that case, no Republicans would need to worry about getting primaried for voting in favor of a constitutional amendment, and few if any legislators would be electorally punished for their lack of action. Inaction is the easiest path for any legislator or legislature to take.
Lewis
3mo ago
True in some fields (sports writing, for example), less true in others. What non-woke group has the financial capacity and coordination ability to produce new worthwhile movies and TV shows? Who can compete with Disney, Netflix, or Amazon? No one, not even the Daily Wire, so when those companies choose to produce only woke content, consumers’ options are either consume that material, or consume nothing.*
*That is, nothing new, which doesn’t bother me the way it seems to bother most people. If I chose to consume only public domain movies, books, music, etc., it would still take me multiple lifetimes to run out of new material.
Lewis
6mo ago
Don’t forget 4. described slavery as a “moral and political evil.” Meanwhile Grant and his wife also owned slaves. Part of the problem is that modern people are allergic to nuance. Everyone must be either a hero or a villain. There’s no room in the modern imagination for anything in between.
Lewis
3mo ago
How about sniping two women walking inside a church courtyard, as happened just before Christmas? Seems pretty indiscriminate and militarily indefensible to me, yet for some reason, the Israeli government doesn’t seem to mind.
Racists do not describe themselves as racists.
This has not been my experience. I have several family members, friends, and coworkers who will unabashedly admit to being racist, or to hating blacks, Jews, and sometimes Hispanics and Asians. They usually have their reasons (and the reasons are usually not wholly irrational), but they don’t shy away from the racist label. Now, these are all red tribe individuals (using Scott’s definition—they include Democrats, Republicans, and the politically indifferent) and are mostly blue collar. I’m guessing blue and grey tribe racists would be less willing to self-identify as such, which might explain your perception.
Lewis
5mo ago
I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say that most of the criticism of Israel that comes from the right is antisemitic, at least not in the United States. Some of it is antisemitic, sure, but plenty of it also comes from Pat Buchanan-style isolationists and from folks—especially, in my experience, younger folks—who find some of Israel’s actions and foreign influence questionable at best. The attitude of the latter group toward the current conflict can perhaps best be summed up as “I just hope both sides have fun,” which I’ve seen a number of times and which is distinctly not antisemitic.
Lewis
6mo ago
I’d think your best bet might be Christian charitable organizations that were already operating inside of Gaza prior to the conflict. The hospital that famously had something happen to it a few weeks ago (not interested in litigating what happened or by whom) is run by the Anglicans, for example.
Lewis
5mo ago
Oh, I’m not trying to fool anyone. Unlike our Secure correspondent, I have no problems with Jews. No, my beef is with Israel. I believe they have a parasitic relationship with the United States, I dislike the influence they have over our politicians, and I despise the blatant hypocrisy of their most ardent defenders. All that said, I don’t like the Palestinians much either. I think I might have said this before, but as I see it, the Israelis are a bunch of bastards, and the Palestinians are an even bigger bunch of bastards (with the usual caveat that there are some fine people on both sides).
With regard to the most recent conflict, my chief concern is that the United States stays out of it. Not a penny of aid to Israel, no munitions, no bribing the Egyptians to play nice, and no accepting any Palestinian refugees. I hate that we are getting involved, that our congress is passing bills equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, that the universities are getting dragged on the carpet for allowing anti-Israel protests (which I’m not going to deny included some antisemitic speech), when no one cared that they allowed anti-white speech, or at least certainly didn’t care to the same extent.
More broadly, I find it ridiculous and unamerican that 3/4th of our state legislatures have passed laws to protect Israeli financial interests. I hate the fact that so many conservatives (my own crowd) unthinkingly consider Israel our greatest ally, just because their congressmen and Fox News told them they were. I briefly had this argument with my father recently; he thinks Israel should bomb Gaza and the West Bank (!) to the ground, so that not a single building is left standing. If any Palestinians survive, fine. If they don’t, that’s fine too. He furthermore believes that we should fund this insane genocide, because “Israel is our greatest ally. Just look at how they were there for us after 9/11.” When I asked why Britain, Germany, or Australia—countries that actually sent troops to help us, unlike Israel, didn’t deserve the title of “greatest ally” instead, he retreated to saying “they provided us with intelligence.” When I pointed out that their intelligence included the lies about WMDs in Iraq, he lost interest in continuing the discussion. “We just need to help them any way we can.” Here’s the thing, he’s not so mind-killed on any subject but Israel, and he’s far from alone in that regard!
Meanwhile, my political opponents are even worse. Colonialism is evil, except for Israel. Stealing land is evil, except for settlements in the West Bank. Apartheid is evil, unless the victims are Palestinian (and yes, I know Israel has some Arab Israeli citizens, and even allows them the vote. They notably forbade them the vote initially, and only enfranchised them once it became clear that the Jewish Israelis had and would keep their ethnic majority). I at least give some credit to the pro-Palestinian left for being consistent, even if I think the Palestinians are mostly worse than the Israelis.
Cycling back around to the start of this comment, all of this wouldn’t bother me if it remained academic. If America would just keep its money and it’s materiel off the table, I wouldn’t care what people thought about the conflict. But that just doesn’t seem in the cards—and what’s more, most people think that’s great. When I opposed our support of the Arab Spring, I found plenty of sympathizers. When I said we shouldn’t get involved in Syria, lots of people agreed. Even when I said that Europe can defend Ukraine if it wants to, but we should not, people were willing to hear me out. For some reason (media influence, sympathy for the Holocaust, whatever), all but the most ardent isolationists (and far-right and far-left) think we should give Israel whatever it wants. I just can’t fathom where this undying, unthinking loyalty to Israel comes from, nor why people care so much more about it than they do about the many more pressing problems we face here in this country.
Lewis
5mo ago
While I agree with you that growing up in an ethnically homogenous community/state is nice and that the existence of such states is in theory legitimate, I recognize that this is not the current international consensus, and I applaud @Gillitrut for being consistent in his convictions. What annoys me more than anything is the blatant hypocrisy surrounding Israel: colonialism bad, apartheid bad, Lebensraum bad, blood and soil nationalism bad—but Israel good? If Rhodesia and the old South Africa government deserved to be sanctioned out of existence, Israel absolutely deserves it too. If the U.S. hadn’t done its best to destroy the former two countries’ governments, I would support Israel today. However, as things stand, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, so “hey, hey, ho, ho, Israel has got to go.”
Lewis
3mo ago
I don’t even see all of those states passing such an amendment. They might not ban same sex marriage again (though I could see it from one or two of them), but they’re definitely not all passing a bill in favor of SSM.
Lewis
4mo ago
Some Protestants (mainly Anglo-Catholics and Lutherans) also hold to the real presence. Luther himself once said he’d rather drink blood with the pope than wine with Zwingli (a rival reformer who rejected the real presence).
Lewis
5mo ago
Or they’re tired of America being the world police; tired of America being asked to foot the bill for “America’s greatest ally,” even when that ally… hasn’t been all that great, actually; and tired of seeing all the double standards that apply anytime Israel comes up. For example, want to boycott apartheid South Africa? The US will happily join you in that. Want to boycott Israel? 37 states will do everything in their power to stop you. Or take safety: the pro-Israel crowd loves to talk about the hatred Palestinians feel toward Israel, and declare that it would be unreasonable to ask the Israelis to let those Palestinians become Israeli citizens and voters. But those same people don’t seem the least bit concerned when South African politicians enliven their mass rallies with the cheerful music of “Kill the Boer,” nor were they concerned in the 1980s, when PAC party members led “one settler, one bullet” chants among their supporters.
Lewis
4mo ago
A supermajority of my Republican family and friends are Trump fans, and the rest all support Desantis. I’ve heard a few speak approvingly of Vivek as a good second choice behind Trump, but I haven’t heard anyone so much as mention Haley. This is in the Midwest, so not really Haley’s stumping grounds, which might go some way to explaining her lack of popularity.
Lewis
3mo ago
According to the U.N.’s definition, yes. As were 9/11, various other terrorist attacks, the aftermath of the Armenia/Azerbaijan war, etc. Now, you could argue that this definition is so expansive as to be useless (and I’d agree if you did), but it’s the one that the international community has been using for the past 75 years.
Lewis
4mo ago
Lewis
3mo ago
In Ecclesiastical Latin, it sounds the same as it does in English (edit:or rather, I suppose I should say that the common pronunciation of that phrase among English speakers is the modern ecclesiastical Latin one). I agree that the original pronunciation is a severe let-down.
Lewis
3mo ago
He’s German. If there’s anything I’d expect from a German, it’s a meticulously tidy and organized home. I used to know a German lady who even swept her front porch and sidewalk on a daily basis.
Lewis
4mo ago
China used to have high fertility, but when exposure after birth was the only method to cull female children it was much less common and the gender balance stayed pretty average. With early testing and abortion available, there are 120 male births for every 100 female births. That represents a society in a severe state of dysfunction, regardless of fertility levels.
I don’t think you can separate China’s possibly uniquely bad gender ratio at birth from its possibly uniquely bad One Child Policy. If that policy had never been implemented, I’m guessing you’d see a much smaller gender disparity. The problem is that they kept a patrilineal society but forbade parents from having multiple children, when if they wanted to adopt the latter policy, they needed to first take an axe to the former tradition. Of course Chinese parents want a boy; it’s how their family line is passed down! Sure, they’ll happily have a girl as a second or third child, but if that option is closed off to them, they’ll settle for just one boy. If anything, I’m surprised the ratio isn’t even more skewed.
You know, if I wanted to write an Ayn Rand-style novel about the evils of immigration, I could copy this and paste it almost verbatim into the mouth of one of the villains. I don’t say this out of any personal animus, but keeping out people with your selfish, exploitative, disloyal attitude is the single largest reason I want heavy restrictions on immigration. Whatever economic benefit you bring to the United States, I firmly believe the country would be better off forgoing it if it meant we would have fewer people like you. Call my attitude irrational, nativistic, whatever—when the chips are down, I and millions of Americans will make sacrifices for our communities and our country, while it’s pretty clear you’ll skip out to somewhere better the first chance you get.
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