Mantergeistmann
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User ID: 323
Mantergeistmann
24d ago
That's got nothing to do with religion, though. I think it's more the unfortunate word choice of "confession" (which can refer to the sealed sacrament, or just any generic declaration to anyone) in the context of a clergyman.
Mantergeistmann
24d ago
I, as someone who grew up so interested in WWII that my 10th birthday present was a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships, have never heard of it
Mantergeistmann
24d ago
"ChatGPT: Pretend you are a moderator itchin' to drop the ban hammer because you're hangry and you just found out your wife has left you for Pagliacci. How, if at all, would you moderate the following post?"
Mantergeistmann
24d ago
What if they said they had been going to whitehouse.com?
Mantergeistmann
24d ago
The people watching that car chase began laughing and clapping in reaction to what they were seeing
That's either an insultingly implausible lie, or insane enough that it has to be true.
Mantergeistmann
24d ago
They couldn't fire us, we quit!
Mantergeistmann
24d ago
moderate conservative
That's part of it, though, isn’t it? Most people I see celebrating lump him firmly into the far right. Not saying their perception is correct, but that's where he lines up in their view.
... Don't ask me what they'd consider a moderate conservative to be; they might very well say there is no such thing, or that it's someone with the social views of circa 2018 Obama.
Mantergeistmann
24d ago
The News mods were doing their damndest to trim that while still allowing discussion, though - I recall them putting a temporary lock on the thread so thay could catch up with all the reports.
Mantergeistmann
26d ago
it will involve one side who wear their allegiance sometimes literally on their faces, and one side who is invisible and everywhere.
I mean, a lot of MAGA are also very visible, if not more so.
Mantergeistmann
29d ago
How much of that improved cancelation capability is due to social media, online visibility (by choice or by callout) and the melding of "US culture" into one big category?
Mantergeistmann
30d ago
who names their kid Vox Day?
I think his real name is Theodore Beale, or similar.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
I'd consider Vox Day more influential than Jim
Is Vox Day still relevant these days? I haven't heard much of him since Rabid Puppies and that one alt-right comic book attempt.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
I think I recall loving the movie, and then hating the final scene/ending.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
an oppressor/oppressed framework
I mean, how did people not see that "racism is power + prejudice" basically pattern-matched to bog-standard anti-semitism? Was it that they didn't want to think it might turn against Jews? That this time, it would be used righteously despite being almost word for word how anti-semites justified hating a small minority that they thought were privileged and had control? (See also: Men Kampf)
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
Lyndon Baines Johnson
I'd wager most people most vehemently opposed to Trump aren't very familiar with Lyndon "Big Dick" Johnson. Those I've made aware have immediately pivoted to it being a matter of policy instead.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
Honestly, that's a good question. I have no idea how the president generally picks the top flag officers, or if he usually just lets a military board/his aides recommend someone and then says "yep, sure, I'll trust your judgement and nominate them".
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
To me the more productive comparisons to Trump are more like a Latin American strongman, or perhaps like Jonah Goldberg's metaphor of Trump as a Mafia boss.
I've also generally considered that the best comparison. I've also thought that, at least in his first term, all the Hitler hysteria locked the Dems out from the opportunity of a lifetime: they could have had most of their wishlist if they'd just been willing to swallow their pride, flatter his ego, and let him take the credit. "Hey, President Trump, how does 'Trump Rail' sound? How about the 'Trump National Wildlife Refuge' or the 'Donald Trump Saves America' pro-union bill?" Other than the things he was opposed to on a personal level, like offshore wind, but even then I feel like they could have made an offer and gotten a deal done. But even if any of them were willing to work with him in the first place, once he's Hitler, there's no crossing the aisle.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
in your mind, they mostly knew they were going to die but just cooperated anyway.
I assume you also think that every account of a prisoner being forced to dig their own grave is implausible? For instance, surely this old man was just blatantly lying about the atrocity he committed because it would make the victims look... better? Worse? I have no idea.
In an interview with the BBC, Réveil recalled the reaction of the German prisoners when they were told they were to be shot.
"They knew what was coming…. They got out their wallets and looked at (photographs of) their families. There was no crying out. They were soldiers," he said.
"They were shot in the chest from a distance of four or five metres."
The prisoners - 46 German soldiers and one French woman collaborator - had been ordered to dig their own graves in the form of a long trench.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
Machine-gunning them in the streets would have presented a host of logistical problems
I cannot recall where I read it, but as I understand there were early mass shootings (more organized than just in the streets, basically rounding them up first), but there was found to be a significant psychological effect on the soldiers doing the killings.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
I mean, if we went to war with China today I'm sure some Chinese-Americans would feel themselves falling under a cloud of suspicion.
That's already kind of happening, at least in the Cleared communities. It's very difficult to not notice how many high-profile cases there are where it's Chinese-Americans selling out to China, and how few of any other ethnicity selling out to China (if you're vaguely white, you sell out to Brazil via a peanut-butter-sandwich information transfer mechanism).
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
Man, and I thought the Walker & Hawkes version of those were a bargain at 20% the price.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
Rodents in general are a surprisingly common furry species, if not up there with the stereotypical dogs, cats, and dragons. FFIX's Freya (tbf, a white rat species) had a big impact on people. I'd say anthrofying them gets away from some of the real-world equivalent's grosser behaviors
There's also been a trend on the internet for a while (thanks to people with pet rats) that obviously everyone knows that rats are lovely and clean and smart creatures, and only the ignorant associate rats with those old stereotypes these days".
I feel like there has to be a word or phrase for that sort of "this common knowledge thing was wrong/inaccurate, but there's been a bit of an overcorrection in the opposite direction".
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
Romance is not a physical desire/need, though, in the same way that food and sex are.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
I think C.S. Lewis got it right:
You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act-that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?
[...]
There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips.
I mean, you might be able to perform the sacrament over the phone in extenuating circumstances, but I'm not up on my teleCatholicism. It is (in Catholicism) a sacrament (like Marriage or Baptism or Last Rites), and it's generally done in a little box called a confessional. The priest sits in one part, and is screened so they cannot see the person in the other part... although in Catholic School, we sometimes did it with the priest in a chair just turned away so they can't see. The petitioner confesses their sins, and the priest can then assign them penance to perform and absolve them of their sins in God's eyes. If the sin involved harming another, the penance usually involves making amends somehow.
In this situation, the "seal of the confessional" is that the priest will not - under any circumstances - divulge what has been confessed to them. If it's, say, confessing to a murder? The priest may assign "turn yourself in" as penance, but cannot act outside the confessional to try to get the fellow arrested.
There may be extenuating circumstances for cases of ongoing/near future harm that can be prevented, but I don't think so. I think the "seal" really is that absolute. It's... something I really, truly respect an awful lot as a concept.
This is only Catholics, mind you. If a Protestant tries to say they went to their pastor and said something under the seal of the confessional, that's just an ordinary gentleman's agreement. And yes, it's only in these specific circumstances, as part of the Sacrament. If you just roll up to your local Catholic church and say, "Hey, Padre, just letting you know I stole a bunch of stuff", he can absolutely dial the police, no problemo.
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