OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
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OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6mo ago
Liberalism's Failures in Family Matters
Last week there was some discussion on the recent Lindsay Hoax. I would like to bring up some criticisms of liberalism, and why I think societies that follow it as a singular goal will inevitably suffer from the problems we see (birth rate collapse, sex wars, etc.)
On a newsletter warning of the dangers of sports gambling, Oren Cass wrote:
Careful readers, like all of you, will surely have noted that The Economist asserts not that the gambling frenzy is about people enjoying themselves, merely that it is about their being free to enjoy themselves. And in the distance between those two concepts is the gaping maw into which our society has plunged itself with this and many similar missteps.
The liberal ideal relies on many huge assumptions. Two of those assumptions are that people will choose things that bring themselves happiness and that externalities (or times when an individuals choices impact others) will be easy to detect and foreseeable. In reality, people will choose things that bring them temporary pleasure or help them avoid temporary discomfort over things that will bring them greater happiness and peace. And maybe the executives of the sports gambling company and the 19 year old with a phone can consent to enter into a relationship where the 19 year old gives the executives all his money, but the 17 year old girlfriend did not consent to being beaten more often. (After the legalization of sports betting, home team losses increase domestic violence by 10%.)
Another assumption of liberalism is that we enter into the world as individuals, without owing or being owed anything. Marc Barnes of New Polity wrote:
It is the basic thesis of liberalism—that philosophy embodied in all our modern technologies and institutions—that we are not social by nature, but individuals, and that anything that looks “social” is in fact some amalgamation of individual things and persons. The most famous one (repeated by weird people who talk about “marriage markets,” Redditors, and evolutionary psychologists to this day) is the Hobbesian argument that society itself is “really just” individuals making contracts with each other in order to pursue their own self-interest...
Rousseau posits that man, in his original state, was an individual, a silliness that necessitates that he imagine babies as proto-individuals, kept for self-interested reasons and then abandoned:
The mother gave suck to her children at first for her own sake; and afterwards, when habit had made them dear, for theirs: but as soon as they were strong enough to go in search of their own food, they forsook her of their own accord; and, as they had hardly any other method of not losing one another than that of remaining continually within sight, they soon became quite incapable of recognising one another when they happened to meet again.
Now, Rousseau gave all five of his kids up to an orphanage, so I concede that some may be nearer to his “state of nature” than others. But, for babies, it is quite literally a joke. Losing the mother is a game they love to play, precisely because it affirms the non-individual status of both: “peek-a-boo” makes known, by way of contrast, that the two belong to each other; that they are members of one body; that the mother is made mother by the child even as the child is made child by the mother, and that this is an enduring metaphysical relationship and a social reality; that, in short, they cannot lose each other, even if, God forbid, they do. Imagining this social reality as actually being a mere individual contract—that the mother might walk away, that she might disappear, that she might hide her face, that the so-called bond is just her choice—all of this is hilarious to the kiddos.
It's hard to believe, but the Enlightenment thinkers really thought that pre-historic humans didn't band together in family or social units. And this complete falsehood is somewhat required to make liberalism work.
The word "atomization" is thrown around as a negative. No one has friends to help them, we have apps that facilitate economic contracts with others to help us move houses or buy groceries if we're sick. Children move thousands of miles from their parents to pursue economic opportunity, leaving behind free family babysitting for the kids they'll never have. Men and women are supposed to be equal, but we're obviously not the same kind of human at all. Atomization is the founding assumption of Liberalism though.
Saying atomization is negative is accepted. But to say that Liberalism has negatives is still very unpopular. The only alternative to Liberalism is Authoritarianism, and Authoritarianism is always Bad.
But there are places where Authoritarianism is needed, particularly in family life. Parents have authority over their children. More than that, there is a pre-existing bond between parent and child to which neither consented. A child cannot consent to their parents before they are born. A parent has no idea what their child will be like before they are born. And yet, by virtue of biological reality, they are committed to a shared project of helping the child become a good adult. The child cannot grow into a good adult without this relationship.
In the latest edition of Dr. Leonard Sax's The Collapse of Parenting, Sax describes a family that comes to him for help. The 12 year old daughter has suddenly shown signs of ADHD. Her teacher filled out a form indicating that the 12-year-old's concentration levels are off the charts in a bad way. The girl's family doctor prescribed her ADHD medication to help alleviate her symptoms. They worked, but also left her jittery with heart palpitations and anxiety symptoms.
Sax's first question to the girl's family is how well she slept. Confused, the parents said the girl slept ok, but when Dr. Sax drilled into the details the girl nonchalantly said she was on her phone until 1-2 AM most nights. "Of course, doesn't everyone?"
Dr. Sax told her parents to take her off the Amphetamines and instead keep the kid's phone in the parents' bedroom at night, starting 9 PM. The parents' response was, "Oh, no, we couldn't do that! She'd be so angry at us."
The parents found it easier to give their 12 year old daughter a schedule II drug than to set a simple limit that would have made her healthier. And Dr. Sax says that this is a very common example that he sees often at his practice.
In The Collapse of Parenting, Dr. Sax theorizes that American parents, especially Liberal/Leftist parents, are uncomfortable with the idea of wielding authority over their children. Longitudinal studies show that kids who have strict but unloving parents grow up without knowing how to form loving relationships of their own. Kids that grow up with permissive parents are incapable of balancing a checkbook and make poor decisions due to a high time preference. The best kind of parenting is both loving and strict - a combination the Literature refers to as "Authoritative Parenting." Authoritative Parenting used to be the default, but among left-leaning families there has been a surge of parents fearing that they are overriding their kids innate preferences. Proper parenting is illiberal, and therefore immoral.
One young child arrived to the practice with a sore throat and fever for three days. When Dr. Sax asked the child to open her mouth, she refused. Dr. Sax looked to the mother, and said, "I need your help to examine your daughter, could you help encourage her to open wide?" The mother responded, "Her body, her choice."
The liberal order worked when it was founded on an illiberal order. When humans acted like humans most of the time, raised their children like humans, formed natural hierarchies like humans, liberalism worked fine. I think it falls apart when the government tries to impose liberal presuppositions on every-day human interactions. It falls apart when people think they are supposed to act perfectly liberal in every social interaction. A society based around consent instead of love (willing the good of one another) will fall apart.
I love liberalism, in a way. I love how it shaped American culture for hundreds of years. But I think the evidence points to a need for a safeguard somewhere, similar to the separation of Church and State. A separation of State and Hearth? Americans need to parent better than Rousseau.
Tocqueville famously believed that religion, particularly Christianity, was necessary in America to create and sustain our Democracy. It provided shared values. People had shared common ground beyond their mere desires which which they could identify what is good for all. There is a benefit to having an ultimate Authority, in Heaven, who everyone agrees to serve but who seldom gives specific commands.
Maybe the problem will resolve itself, as atheists fail to reproduce and the deeply religious take over again. Or maybe the cat's all the way out of the bag. But the evidence seems to point towards Liberalism being good but insufficient, and the next best thing needs to be figured out before we lose the goods of Liberalism as well.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
What I don't understand is why you not only think that ownership is bad but that everyone would agree with you that ownership is bad. The phrase, "legal right to deprive others," might sound scary simply because you put the word "legal" there, but it's incomplete. For example, my kids own things, even if legally I have every right to confiscate their toys. There are some toys which are gifted on birthdays which are theirs for a time, but eventually go into the general toy pile. There are some toys which we would never ever make them share - like the special stuffed animals they have slept with at night since they were infants.
These stuffed animals might be legally "mine," but they are in fact my children's. They have the right to deprive their siblings of these toys, and that is 100% perfect, treasured, lovely. I don't know how to express just how wonderful it is for them to have ownership of these toys, and how much psychological benefit this ownership has generated.
These stuffies are theirs. They smell like their owner. Putting their stuffy in their hands makes them calm down within a minute. Night wakeups are easily managed by reminding my kids of the existence of their stuffed animal.
One day, while driving my oldest to school, she started getting upset. I asked her what was wrong.
She said, "I left Hopper on the floor."
"It's ok, he'll be just fine there."
"No, what if [the toddler] steps on him?"
"Hopper will be just fine, I've stepped on him before and I weigh much more than [toddler]. Hopper will bounce back! He's fluffy."
"No.. What if [the toddler] steps on him... and realizes how soft and wonderful he is?"
"Oh, you're worried about Forbidden Love. I'll call daddy and have him put Hopper on the dresser."
This sounds cute, but it expands further than children in a family. An ideal family holds everything in common, it's as love-oriented over ownership-oriented as you can get. Even in the family, there are different divisions of dominion. Humans need dominion.
We naturally divide up labor and tools according to who has the capacity to use them. Oftentimes divisions become domains - the husband does yard work and bathroom cleaning, the wife does kitchen work, the kids bring the mail in and sweep on weekends. Having dominion gives you authority to do things you otherwise wouldn't do. When a kid is told to clean the counters, the kid will wipe just the visible areas without moving the toaster or spice rack out of the way. This is because the kid does not have dominion over the whole kitchen, doesn't feel pieces of his own awareness/soul/psyche over all the appliances. The adult who has dominion over the kitchen will take everything down, move tables and chairs and appliances, and give everything the maintenance it needs to be clean and functional.
People find dignity in owning things and using them to make other things. My knitting supplies and the kitchen's baking tools, these are mine. I take care of them, I use them to make things for my family. I don't need a lawyer to step in, everyone in the family knows that these are mine and they need to ask my permission to use them. In using these tools I create my identity and dignity.
And if that applies so well in the home, where all is held in legal common and we are constantly working towards the other's good, how much more does that apply in the public world?
I think the only sympathetic thing I find in your comments are what Catholics would call, "The Universal Destination of Goods." Catholics have a concept that the whole world is a gift to all humans from God, and that no one has the right to deprive others of what they need. So that whoever has two shirts should give one to someone without any. And if you have more bread stored up than you can ever eat, you are stealing it from someone without.
However, this concept is tempered by the idea that humans get dignity from work, humans were made to be stewards, and good stewardship depends on having a sense of ownership over the physical world. So you have a world that is truly owned by God, gifted to humanity as a whole, which is divided to everyone as stewards. These stewards have a sense of ownership which is in reality participation in the Divine Ownership of all things. Not everyone has an equal share of stewardship, because there is inequality in people's capacities along with inefficiencies in the allocation methods. But everyone should be using their goods to the glory of God and the well-being of every person.
There you go, I have articulated a positive vision of property and ownership. Now your turn. I'm as tired of everyone else on this forum of how you keep dancing around what you actually believe should happen, rather than just acting negative about a concept that most people actually see the benefits of.
Minnesota Legitimacy Crisis
A legitimacy crisis can occur when two different groups interpret laws in different ways. This is bad because you wind up with two sets of people in the same jurisdiction, each abiding by different laws, living in parallel legal realities, and whether they are caught violating the law or not depends on which member of the group is enforcing it at the time.
In predominately Blue Minnesota, the state legislature found itself in a tie between Republicans and the DFL (what Democrats call themselves over there.) This made Democrats pretty worried, because it meant they would need to work with Republicans this session.
Then disaster struck - one of the DFL candidates who won their House seat, Curtis Johnson, was not qualified to serve in the legislature, because he did not live in District 40B as the state constitution requires. This leaves the seat vacant until a special election can be held. This gave the Republicans an advantage over the Democrats, something the DFL could not tolerate.
So the Democrats refused to show up to the legislature when they were legally required to do so. They were sworn in in secret, and didn't show up. On the first day of the legislative session, the Democratic Lt. Governor showed up, called the House to order, and then said, "You don't have quorum, so you can't do anything, I adjourn the House."
To have quorum, you need a majority of the House's members. Democrats are saying that there are 134 House Seats, half of 134 is 68, therefore the Republicans do not have quorum and cannot do anything.
However, because Curtis Johnson’s seat has been declared vacant by the MN Supreme Court, there are not 134 House members. There are 133. A majority is therefore 67 members—which is exactly what the House GOP has.
Where it gets weird is there are two competing norms written in two different books. Mason's Manual (which governs the Minnesota Legislature’s operations) says:
The total membership of a body is to be taken as the basis for computing a quorum, but, when there is a vacancy, unless a special provision is applicable, a quorum will consist of the majority of the members remaining qualified.
Cushing’s Law Practice of Legislative Assemblies, 9th Edition (1874), which Mason's Manual cites, says:
When the number, of which an assembly may consist, at any given time, is fixed by constitution, and an aliquot proportion of such assembly is required in order to constitute a quorum, the number of which such assembly may consist and not the number of which it does in fact consist, at the time in question, is the number of the assembly, and the number necessary to constitute a quorum is to be reckoned accordingly.
Which can be interpreted as that the number of seats determines quorum, BUT Minnesota does not have the number of seats fixed by constitution. So it does not appear that this rule applies. Conveniently, when Democrats cite the rule, they leave out the first part of the quote that references the constitution.
This is a good write up if you want to read all the details: https://decivitate.substack.com/p/legitimacy-crisis-in-my-minnesota. Or if you prefer something written by an actual expert, and not an internet hobbyist, this brief provides a good (if biased for GOP) summary: https://macsnc.courts.state.mn.us/ctrack/document.do?document=be8019a34d345648b6cf0337f337a772f1da69c972cc5609aef2144e14f85fc1
Meanwhile, the GOP has elected the first Black Speaker of the Minnesota House and is trying to get things done. The DFL is trying to stop them from getting things done by avoiding work and by sending people to harass the GOP in the legislature.
Oral Arguments are going in front of the Minnesota Supreme court today, at 1 PM local. The Supreme Court is 7-0 Democrats’ appointees. I think the GOP's argument has a stronger legal basis, but that does not mean that the DFL will lose the case. What happens then?
One problem is that courts have a limit with their jurisdiction over other branches of government. We saw that with the recent SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity. Can the legislature keep saying, "No, you do not have say over legislative proceedings, we are going to keep doing what we are doing?" The Minnesota Constitution states clearly, "Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings."
So you can wind up in a situation where the GOP legislature passes a law saying that it is illegal to wear red T-shirts on a Sunday, a GOP cop arrests someone for this new crime, and whether or not you end up in prison depends on if the judge is GOP or DFL. People in Minnesota have a real risk at the moment of living in a land where two sets of laws are enforced by two sets of people.
Of all things, I think this is the greatest risk to our country. Not worried about Minnesota specifically (sorry to whomever lives there, please escape at your earliest convenience.) But something similar can happen on the Federal level, might very well happen with Trump trying to shred norms as best he is able. And if that happens... it could spell the end of the Republic (or at the least a Civil War until we can force States to sign an amendment that corrects whatever crisis arose.)
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
11mo ago
I'm against Libs of TikTok cancelling random poor workers for not knowing when to shut up. But this article makes a case for it.
First, the author makes a case that "Normie Bloodlust" is common and never punished. Think of people expressing hope that a rapist is raped in prison. I don't think the author believes that this behavior is good, per se, just common and usually unpunished.
He then goes on to say that "there’s nothing unfair, and certainly nothing unconstitutional, about facing social opprobrium for unpopular speech and behavior." He seems to support that sort of cancellation, whichever side of the aisle it is coming from.
But then he argues that the Right has been facing a different, unfair type of cancellation:
The reason you can get fired for liking a Steve Sailer tweet, or donating $25 to a legal defense fund, isn’t because of a Groundswell of Popular Outrage — it’s because your employer can face 9-figure fines if they refuse to enforce a particular set of social strictures.
When my doxx was released, the “expose” got 400 likes on Twitter. For perspective, I’ve had 10 tweets with more than that in the last 72 hours. 400 likes is not “viral”, even with a dozen antifa doxxing rings (at the height of their energy) and a reporter from the Guardian helping it along.
It turns out, nobody actually cares if an entry-level finance drone thinks that feminism sucks.
But it wasn’t about a “social media outrage mob”. My employer was a glowie intelligence contractor — they didn’t “cave to popular pressure”. They don’t even sell to the public.
It was about avoiding the threat of being sued for creating a Hostile Work Environment by allowing my words to go unpunished. They fired me to comply with federal law.
The last interesting point he makes is that:
A good friend who works in HR issues the following warning:
“not sure people realize that 1) a presidential assassination attempt is like a every 30 years black swan event where the HR Ladies are forced to fire anyone who says the wrong thing, and 2) the HR Ladies relish these opportunities to make a few ingroup firings because it reestablishes their neutrality and legitimacy”
“lots of ppl seem to be victory lapping over a "vibe shift" that is really more of a temporary vibe window that will snap shut within weeks”
I think he makes some good points though I disagree with the conclusion that it is fine and dandy for the Right to cancel struggling zero-influence people for saying things that were normal to say two weeks ago.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
For example, he said that there is no such thing as a Canadian identity and that he views Canada is the world’s first “postnational state.”
I've been trying to put into words why I'm against open borders and I think this is the piece I needed to understand my inherent distrust. A post-national state does not have a people, it has a territory. Other - real - nations can exploit that territory without regard for the people. The government of a nation is elected by the people to put their common good first.
Trudeau sees himself as some sort of steward of Canada's natural resources and land. His "postnational state" denies the existence of a category called "Canadian people." There is the land of Canada, and the people currently inhabiting it which he has jurisdiction over. But without having a category of Canadian people to even reference, his decisions are not sourced in what is the well-being of the Canadian people and their decedents.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2yr ago
You aren't the first person to discover that homeless people appreciate being looked in the eye and spoken to like they are human beings. In fact, I was trained to do that from a Catholic Charity - that even if I don't have any cash lying around I can still help make someone's day if I have just 10 minutes to spare. In fact, Catholic charities are making those individual connections and treating the undesirables like human beings all the time, in a way that does not often happen at a governmental level. I don't believe that it's 100% sufficient - there needs to be a safeguard to protect people who live far away from charities or who have personalities that conflict with the charities. But you are knocking Christians for something they are constantly doing and something that just occurred to you.
I don't distrust welfare because it gives money to the undeserving. I am worried that we create perverse incentives for single mothers. I am worried that it increases the percent of people who could have been working but now have time to spend on criminality and drugs/escapism. I would support the Freedom Dividend, or Fair Tax, or whatever welfare plan that helps prevent that incentive structure.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
Regarding Cardinal Tagle, all I can say is that failure to generate a thriving local church doesn't mean a lack of Cardinal allies. @hydroacetylene knows more about the politics side of the equation.
The Spirit of Vatican II is characterized by the time immediately preceding and immediately following the Second Vatican Council. I'm not sure what would have gone differently if this "Spirit" wasn't a real spirit, and a demon to boot. Watch the Puppet Mass or the Clown Mass and tell me there's no demonic involvement. (I'm not sure how serious I am being here. There are many who would take this allegation more seriously.)
Rewind a bit. Why did people feel like they could have a mass with clowns and puppets? Before Vatican II, there was a very specific rubric they were supposed to follow. After Vatican II, there was a very specific rubric they were supposed to follow, one that did not recommend clowns or puppets. The rubric changed, but the adherence to it stopped. Priests either started doing their own inventions, or stepped back from their leadership role in the liturgy and allowed lay people (predominantly women who were teenagers in the 1960s) to add things to the liturgy.
The Spirit of Vatican II, most plainly put, is the attitude many took when things that seemed unchangable began to change. Many Catholics didn't (and still don't) understand the difference between small "t" traditional practices, like liturgical rites, and big "T" Traditional Doctrine, like teachings on Christology, Sacraments, and Morality. If you were alive then, and thought the mass is something the Church taught could never change, and then the Church changed it...
The conclusion a lot of people made was that anything could be changed. And if anything could be changed, it might as well be changed by themselves, in their own image and likeness.
Let's rewind a bit further. Why were people dissatisfied with the Mass of Pius V? The laity felt disconnected from the mass. There were lots of abuses. The most common mass was a low mass, without music and most of the fanfare that fans of the Mass of Pius V like today.
It was common for priests to try to rush through the mass - I have heard people say that most masses they went to were 20 minutes long. In order to get through the whole liturgy in 20 minutes, the Priest would have to be mumbling quickly in Latin. There wasn't as much call-and-response like there is in the new mass. The experience of many Catholics was: go to Church, pray quietly while listening to a priest mutter to himself for 20 minutes, sometimes receive communion, and walk out.
High masses were glorious time commitments, low masses were checking off a cosmic checklist. Good and holy priests would have good and holy low masses. But there were many priests who did not fill this category, and many priests who felt like there was no point in enunciating a mass spoken in Latin to God instead of in the vernacular to the Congregation.
What was the new mass, the Mass of Paul VI, supposed to look like? Done according to the rubrics, it looks like this. According to the Vatican II document discussing the Liturgy, Sacrosantum Concilium, Latin was still supposed to be given "Pride of Place." Here is how the actual council of Vatican II wanted things to develop:
- Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.
- Sacred scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy. For it is from scripture that lessons are read and explained in the homily, and psalms are sung; the prayers, collects, and liturgical songs are scriptural in their inspiration and their force, and it is from the scriptures that actions and signs derive their meaning.
- It is to be stressed that whenever rites, according to their specific nature, make provision for communal celebration involving the presence and active participation of the faithful, this way of celebrating them is to be preferred, so far as possible, to a celebration that is individual and quasi-private.
-The sermon, moreover, should draw its content mainly from scriptural and liturgical sources, and its character should be that of a proclamation of God's wonderful works in the history of salvation
- the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites... But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters.
-The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action
At no point do I see anything recommending deploying clowns.
And so it goes for the other Vatican II documents. Individual Catholics took minor developments in a certain direction (often a return to traditions and increased emphasis on teachings from earlier in Church History) and decided to make a complete rupture.
I focused a lot on the Liturgical side to this, but I could make similar write ups on what Vatican II teaches on interpretation of scripture, No Salvation Outside the Church, etc.
I have never had any trouble finding good parishes that mostly abide by the rubrics. Even so, I have noticed an increase in chant and Latin. Parishes have started doing the entrance antiphon - I never heard this as a kid. Our parish has two first-year priests, they seem a lot less gay and more knowledgeable than the older priests. There is a major vibe shift going on.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
8mo ago
Third, and more idealistically, I would feel like a total hypocrite with no ground to stand on if I claimed to be pro-freedom, pro-liberalism, and pro-democracy, but didn’t really take a stand against somebody trying to attack enemy politicians and rig an election.
If you didn't read anything else but this sentence, would you know Scott was arguing against Trump or against the Democratic Party?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
I love America. I love George Washington. I love Thomas Jefferson. I love Betsy Ross. I love our stupid national anthem with notes that most people can't reach. I love the Constitution, and the Liberty Bell, and our National Parks. I love the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers. I love our aircraft carriers and our war planes. I love the Grand Canyon and the Bald Eagle. I love supermarkets and farmer's markets. I love our long and fraught journey to secure each citizen the greatest freedoms enjoyed by man on Earth.
I love them in the same way I love my parents, who I didn't choose and aren't necessarily the best, but they raised me as best as they were able. To say that one country is the same as another to me would be to say that one random couple is the same as my parents to me.
Is this something only people raised in America feel, or does anyone else feel that way about their homeland?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2yr ago
Assuming the question wasn't rhetorical...
Liberals and to a certain degree Americans have a belief in free speech. Not just as a God-given right, but as a principle that creates the most public good.
Good ideas will win out over time, reasonable people will be able to identify bad ideas, poke holes, and most people will go along with the good ideas. Truth has nothing to fear from its enemies.
So what does it mean when there is a forum dedicated to the principles of free and civil discussion... and it doesn't converge on what you know to be true? When your beliefs that are widely held on highly-censored forums become difficult to defend on a free-discussion forum?
It is easier to believe there must be some other fatal flaw with TheMotte than it is to believe that there is something wrong with your beliefs. It must be dog-pilling, witches, some other phenomena. But what if there isn't anything flawed about TheMotte, it's either your beliefs or the principle of free discussion that is flawed? That would be a hard pill to swallow and I can see TheMotte's existence bothering people on a subconscious level.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
The direct comparison to J6 I can think of is in 2017, when there was a "DisruptJ20" movement, where the stated goal was:
We are planning to shut down the inauguration, that's the short of it ... We're pretty literal about that, we are trying to create citywide paralysis on a level that I don't think has been seen in D.C. before.
And
There has been a lot of talk of peaceful transition of power as being a core element in a democracy and we want to reject that entirely and really undermine the peaceful transition
Undermine the peaceful transition of power? Doesn't that sound like Insurrection? What happened to these hardened insurrectionists?
In late November 2017, six people charged with rioting went on trial. Prosecutors alleged that these six people were taking part in DisruptJ20 protests and vandalism.[37] A jury trial found the six defendants not guilty on all counts in December 2017.[38] On January 18, 2018, the U.S. Justice Department dropped charges against 129 people, leaving 59 defendants to face charges related to the DisruptJ20 protest.[39] By early July 2018, federal prosecutors had dropped all charges against all defendants in the case.[40]
Ah, so nothing serious. But hey, at least they didn't storm the Capitol Building!
In 2020, protestors surrounded the White House and tried to break down the barriers. Trump and his family had to hide in a bunker:
Thousands of protesters demonstrated peacefully near the White House during the day, but by nightfall, with hundreds still in the streets, the scene turned more volatile as crowds surged forward against lines of riot police with plastic shields as the two sides vied for control of Lafayette Square across from the White House. Protesters threw water bottles, set off fireworks and burned a pile of wood and at least one car.
At least they didn't succeed? Is that the metric we're going to use? Because then the J6 protestors should be off the hook, because they ultimately failed to do anything significant. I guess they just had the wrong amount of success, just enough to break down a barricade, not enough to break down America.
And that's leaving out all the other protests that have happened on Capital hill, some violent, some peaceful. Kids crowding congressional offices to protest Climate Change, the Kaunavaugh confirmation protests, etc. And even that is leaving out all the protests inside various state's Capitol Buildings.
Do Democrat leaders support violent action against federal buildings, such as the Oregon courthouse siege? Yes they do! Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was among the rioters laying siege and Nancy Pelosi tweeted in support of the protestors (and against the government officials trying to resist them). If you don't remember much of what happened there, or maybe your news sources weren't reporting on it, Winston Marshall has a good 15 minute video here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jNoxpP5Jhvo
I'm not a fan of what happened on Jan 6th. I posted in the motte that week something to the effect of, "I'm a conservative and I'm glad that Ashley Babbit was killed." But I would place it in the same realm of the riots and protests of the above, not some unique evil that members of the Republican Party have perpetrated.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
I bake my neighbors cookies and so far one of my neighbors has even returned the plate (along with a bottle of wine.)
Two doors down there is a single dad with two kids around the same age as mine. Across the street is a couple with three kids, slightly older. Next door on one side is a retiree who lost her cat when she moved in. On the other side is another family with small kids.
I have a play structure in my backyard which makes my house a good place to invite kids over. Excuses are easy to find if I'm willing to put in the effort.
Suburbia can be a soulless hell. I need to cross a highway to get to any commercial space - restaurant, grocery store, other kind of shop. But I know right off the bat that most of my neighbors are homeowners, have jobs that can pay for houses and cars, have kids and the responsibilities that go with that, can follow the most basic rules of the HOA (I don't like there is an HOA, but recognize it as a filter.) As a baseline they are more trustworthy than anyone I pass on the street. I am putting in the work to cultivate those relationships but I believe it is worthwhile.
I remember growing up in suburbia, I rode my bike in the neighborhood with the other kids. I would go to other kids' homes and knock on their front door and ask, "Is Heather home?" I would kick the ball in my backyard over the fence and have to go to the street one over and knock on a stranger's door and ask if I could retrieve my ball. My parent's mostly watched me through the kitchen window - I had a great deal of independence even by the time I was five years old.
My mom met with friends almost every day, either at a McDonalds with a play place, a park, or someone's home.
The change, as far as I perceive it, happened around 9/11. Same neighborhood, same kids, same families, but people stopped visiting as much. I wasn't allowed to go out by myself as much. A layer of optimism was stripped away.
I guess that's why I think it is mostly an attitude thing, not anything inherent to the suburbs. And why I stubbornly believe I can create a community if I keep pressing my neighbors to interact with me.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5mo ago
In any case I feel very comfortable asserting that ~no one enforces their own desires and boundaries as they might like 100% of the time.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that I don't consent to it. I make the decision to accept that I am working late instead of hang out with my husband. I make the decision to watch the show my husband likes and I don't really care about. I consent to all these things because I weigh up their plusses and minuses, and make a decision. That's just what it is to be a human person in an imperfect world making decisions. "Sure, I decided to take on student loans, but I felt pressured from my parents to go to the more expensive school and I don't like the idea of paying them back." Still consent.
An employer or landlord trying to get sex out of an employee/tenant is bad for reasons that have nothing to do with consent. It's bad because it creates an unfair labor or housing market, which is based around who is willing and able to provide sexual favors.
The point is that maybe sex is special, and consent is necessary but insufficient to guarantee an ethical sexual encounter.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
I've mentioned on here a few times that our family has an Au Pair and I work from home most days. This happy arrangement is going to come to an end and I'm of mixed feelings.
First, for those who don't know, there is a program in the State Department that is designed to connect families with young women across the world who would be interested in taking care of children in exchange for living in America for a year. The host family has to provide a separate room and pay a weekly stipend. It's a "cultural program." As part of it they are supposed to take a couple college courses every year. There is a lot of abuse, but I pay my Au Pair more than the minimum, don't ask her to do more than just keep the kids alive, and buy her whatever she asks for that seems reasonable.
When interviewing Au Pairs (it's a lot like an online dating service, with profile pages and matches) I always asked, "What are you hoping to get out of becoming an Au Pair? What benefit are you looking for?" The answer was almost always, "More experience speaking English." This seems reasonable, as a good American accent probably gives people a huge advantage in business.
Anyways, the State Department is reviewing the Au Pair program, and has proposed a series of rules that will break it for most families. I don't want to count every toothbrush I buy her, or make sure that she only eats $10.88 worth of food every day. Regardless of what is financially feasible, I'm not going to do it. There's just no way to live with someone in your house, monitor them to this extent, and then still trust them with your kids.
But then the question turns to, "Who is going to watch my kids?" I have four kids, ranging from 10 months to 6 years. There is a preschool we send one child to for 1/2 day socialization, and she likes it well enough. I could send the others to their Summer Camp. But the 10 month old would be too young, and daycare for a 1 year old is already booked up for a year.
Then there's the reality that I'm not giving my kids the attention I want to. Work takes over too much. I might technically be off work at 4:30, but someone puts a meeting on my calendar at 5, or I really need to finish these three five emails, and before I know it it's Dinner Time. I have all these worksheets I want to do with my two oldest and practice penmanship (which they really struggle with.) I want to take my kids outside to play. I want to go for walks. But I also want to be held in esteem at work. As long as work is there, I will put off my kids because kids can wait but work can't. But that is a LIE. Kids grow up, and toil is forever.
I don't want to send them off to a church preschool from 7 to 5, and then pick them up, feed them dinner, do homework, and kiss them good night. That's not how I was raised. That's not what I want for my family.
So I will likely become a stay at home Mom, once my Au Pair's contract ends. I'm looking forward to taking my kids to parks, splash pads, libraries, festivals, and other public areas around my city. My city is actually really family friendly. I know it is hard work. I took half a year off work when I had my second child. I know it can be isolating. But I have the example of my mother, who make lots of mom friends and seemed to have a blast when my siblings and I were young. Thinking about making this change fills me with excitement and hope.
The two downsides - and they are huge - is money and the Future. Money is easy enough to explain - we will have less of it. My husband makes enough for us to live on, if we had no debt we would have a good amount left over after all the mandatory bills (food, mortgage, utilities, etc.) Unfortunately, we have debt. There are some student loans that are almost paid off and we are in a payment plan with the children's hospital after three of my children were hospitalized for a cumulative of 27 days, 10 of which were in the ICU. With this debt, we are still able to make due, and live a good quality of life, but we would need to be careful to limit things like how much meat we buy, how many clothes we get the kids, etc. Once the debt is paid off in a couple years, it's all fine. But we will have to live frugally for a couple years, or risk falling into more debt.
The Future one is harder to explain, but I can't stay home with the kids forever. By the time the youngest is 10, if not sooner, I need to go back into the labor force. I think that is where my mother messed up. She put her foot down on her identity as a homemaker, ended up not doing much during the school day, driving us around to sports in the afternoon (until I was able to drive, and then she had even less to do.) The cognitive decline you see retirees experience, she seemed to get when she was 50. She kept the public areas of the house clean, cooked dinner (badly), and otherwise watched Masterpiece Theater. Shortly after I graduated college, my parents divorced. Now she is a real estate agent with no sales and sometimes manages to convince her friends to pay above market rates to clean their house.
I see a few possibilities. I have a Master's degree, and can probably get a certification and find work as a school teacher once the children are in school. I don't have any particular interest in this. I think of schools as enemy territory, so to speak. It would be nice if I could instead home school my kids (I'm not going to leap straight into that, but it's a possibility now.) Maybe I could teach at a Catholic School. The benefit of being a school teacher is obvious, I would be off work most of the same days that my children would be.
The other idea I'm entertaining is to start my own business. I've been thinking up a small catalog of things I could crochet. Things that could only be done by hand, look unique, and would take me less than two hours a piece. I could buy a stamping kit for 1k and sell personalized jewelry. I could lean into the Mommy space, and sell "calming jars" and other kid trinkets.
The idea would be to do something for a few hours a week, just enough to keep a storefront and a tax ID. If I actually turn a small profit I can use to buy a zoo membership or something, that would be a bonus. As the kids get bigger, I can spend more time on it, eventually either actually making it a full time job, or pivoting back into being a wage worker. It seems like it will be easier for me to get hired if I can say I started a small business, rather than I took time off work to care for small kids.
I'm open to any and all suggestions.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
I think we're about 3-5 years out from a "the Science changed, idiot" with a side helping of blaming repressive conservative gender roles for the prevalence of transition between 2014-2025. 40 years from now kids will learn how the election of Republican Donald Trump coincided with a large surge in transitions, so obviously it was a Republican phenomenon. Some internet pedants will conduct statistical analysis of congresspeople to demonstrate that the evidence is more blurry.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
I think we're experiencing a restoration of what was the typical attitude of Americans to Europe. You are asking for American Vibes, so what I say may not be representative but it is how it appears to my family:
The first American settlers knew that they were leaving behind a continent full of aristocratic in-fighting, abuses of human dignity, and religious persecution. When Americans first crafted their government, they did so in response to European governments. They were explicitly thinking, "This is what went wrong in Europe (mostly England and France) and here's how we're going to avoid it."
However, that still puts Europe in a privileged position in America. They're our foil. We didn't create a government in opposition to Chinese governance, or Ottoman governance. We were Europeans trying to improve upon European political theory.
Throughout American history, there was this tension. At first we were the underdogs. Later, we became partners, and imagined ourselves the saviors in global conflicts. We watched, amused, as Europe started to "catch up" to us in freedom. While they didn't have anything close to a Bill of Rights, they did seem to start to understand the value of Free Speech, a justice system centered on the rights of the accused, etc.
However, we were always aware that they didn't see things as we did. European rights and freedoms were not absolute, they still have "sovereigns" who aren't explicitly the citizenry, etc. We have a lot in common - more in common than the rest of the world - but we are not the same. We can be on the same side, but our priorities will be different.
In the past 20 - 30 years, there has been a movement in the US to see Europe as "Just like us, only better." Leftist commentators looked at Europe and said, "They have gay marriage and haven't fallen apart yet, we should have gay marriage." They looked at Europe and said, "They have paid maternity leave, we should too." Subsidized Healthcare, vacation days, worker protections, regulations. America was no longer ahead of Europe, we were behind it. Despite of being the center of culture, technology, and economics, we were told that we were a backwater. "The world hates America." These voices gained influence over time and seemed ascendant during Obama's presidency.
The American people are tired of this messaging. We are tired of snobby Europe who prioritizes their citizen's low retirement ages over their contractual defense obligations and then mocks us for working into our 80s while we foot the Global Peace Bill. We are tired of being lectured to by the Sages of Government Intervention and Safetyism while they prosecute people for praying silently in the wrong places. We especially don't want America to grow any more similar to Europe as it is now.
Most Americans don't have any love of Russia. Most Americans would probably agree that Russia shouldn't have invaded the Ukraine. But most Americans are pragmatic, and understand that prolonging this conflict isn't going to right that wrong. I see America as more pragmatic than Europe in general.
But I think that is the extent of it. America is not actively hostile to Europe. If Trump doesn't want Europe at the bargaining table, it might be because he thinks they will fuck it up. There are some concessions that will have to be made, and Europe has proved that they find it more convenient to throw Ukrainian males at the problem to delay making these concessions.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2yr ago
Here is a possibility: "Induced abortion by vacuum aspiration is associated with an increased risk of first-trimester miscarriage in the subsequent pregnancy.". Furthermore, "women with previous history of two or three induced abortions were at risk of preterm birth, very preterm birth and low birth weight babies in the subsequent pregnancies. The risk of caesarean was found to be increased in women with previous two or three spontaneous abortions exposing the women to the morbidity associated with the C-section."
African American women are more likely to have multiple abortions.
If both these are true, I don't know what else we'd expect. It also might explain why richer African American women have worse outcomes - do wealthier African Americans have more abortions than poorer African American women?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2yr ago
I’m not sure how to verify the numbers exactly (even Joyce admits we don’t have clear counts). The number is clearly greatly increasing, but it’s not clear if this just reflects that the right number of kids are getting them, or too many are. I will say that she’s correct on the broadening of who can get blockers. The Mayo Clinic, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, and Cleveland Clinic all say that you don’t have be trans, but just questioning your gender to get it.
I think the huge age and Assigned Sex at Birth tilt is indicative of something. If the rise was a correction to the actual number of gender dysphoric people due to societal acceptance, I would predict that trans-identified individuals would rise equally across both sexes and all age groups. We see the opposite. It is highly tilted by sex and age. In the past, the vast majority of transgendered individuals were AMAB. Now most are AFAB.
UCLA Williams Institute released a report examining the number of trans-identified people over the past five years. It buried the lede in its June 2022 report: in the same five-year period while trans-ID increased 100% among youth, trans-ID among adults 25 and over dropped 21%.
In 2016, total estimated population for transgender adults was 1,184,150. By 2022 it was 938,200. Growing social acceptance of trans-ID does not fully explain why we see more of it among children and less among adults. It could make sense if the trans-ID among adults remained the same or increased slightly compared to youth and young adults. To have the percentage of adults decrease 21% at the same time as the percentage increased 100% among young people seems significant.
Using vague estimations for demonstrative effect: If only 1% of people 25+ are transgendered, but 10% of people 25 and under are, then either there are still 9% of people 25+ who are transgendered but are struggling to keep it under wraps or 9% of people under 25 did not have to transition to live comfortable lives. If it was the former I predict would mean we'd see at least some of those 9% of people transition as social norms make it easier to transition. But we don't see older people transition at significant rates, instead we see many detransition.
So we approach the other horn. Up to 9% of people under 25 could have lived decently comfortable cis lives, but instead transitioned because of some change in the environment. Is this a good outcome? There are many side effects to the drugs that transgendered people take, like increased risk of heart attack and stroke for females on testosterone. There's also baldness, which many transmen take Finasteride to counter, another drug with a whole host of issues. It is not an exaggeration to say that transitioning dramatically reduces quality of life. It is harder to find a romantic partner. Having biological kids might be impossible. Many medical issues and difficulty getting the correct treatment for their specific hormonal and chromosonal profile. Every transgendered person over 30 that I have asked has stated that they would not want anyone to have the transgendered experience if there was a way to prevent it (though they usually maintain that transitioning was the only option for their sanity.)
I can support transitioning as a major medical intervention that is preferable to suicide, despite the myriad of health complications. But treating it as no big deal seems like it would be difficult to defend.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2yr ago
I don't mind there being Elves of Color or humans of color in the Amazon series. Elves came out of the far East before being drawn West? And then some elves stayed behind while others went on over the sea. If there was a consistent racial difference between the elves that came over the sea and those that had stayed behind, I'd be ok with it.
Numenor was a massive empire centered around what would now be the Mediterranean and the crown was based on the Egyptian crown. So there's a lot of room for a cosmopolitan society there. (Though there is a rule that only a man can inherit the crown, and the show breaks that.)
What bothers me is when people's ethnicity just does not make sense considering the historical context.
Like isolated Hobbit village. If they want to argue that hobbits used to all be darker but got lighter over thousands of years by the time of LOTR, I'd accept that. But if they have hobbit precursors that look like they are from every corner of the globe in a small isolated community that hasn't had any intermarriage for hundreds of years... that makes no sense. Same with dwarves. If they want to say that elves who have been in the same geographic regions and marriage stock for thousands of years have distinct ethnicities, that seems impossible too.
This is all to say, what will really bother me at the end of the day is a show that doesn't give the same consideration to history, language, and time that Tolkien imbued on his universe. If there isn't an explanation for everything that goes back tens of thousands of years, they did it wrong. If everyone acts like a modern American, with modern American values and motivations, they did it wrong.
Primarily, I would be teaching my daughters their bodies and give them tools/trackers just for the educational value. There is so much more value to being aware of your cycle. It can tell a woman when she will be the most motivated, when she'll be more likely to make bad decisions, etc. Teenagers taught to monitor their bodies have reported things like, "Now I know when I'm angry at a certain time of the month, to just wait it out and not make any big decisions." Teenage girls in correctional facilities were astonished to see that their misbehavior typically fell in the same time of the month. Etc. I don't think I need to defend to this sub the value of self-knowledge.
The ideal would be that they don't have sex. But if they do, they will know exactly when and why they got pregnant.
I have a huge issue with lumping together "Symptoms-based fertility awareness ex. symptothermal and calendar-based methods". There are five different methods I can name off the top of my head that meet that criteria, which vary in effectiveness from 75% to 99.8% with perfect use. Complicating this is that a lot of people use a condom during fertile time instead of abstaining, which just makes the effectiveness on par with a condom.
Calendar-based method: Terrible effectiveness rate. I've heard of one that was just, "Have sex every 10 days" and it had an effectiveness rate of like 90%, which is funny but isn't super in-tune with the body.
Then there's the Marquette Method, which is starting to get into more measurable, technological solutions. You pee on a stick every morning, it gives you a reading you chart, the chart tells you whether or not you should have sex that day if you want to be pregnant or not.
There were forty-two unintended pregnancies which provided a typical use unintended pregnancy rate of 6.7 per 100 women over twelve months of use. Eleven of the forty-two unintended pregnancies were associated with correct use of the method. The total unintended pregnancy rate over twelve months of use was 2.8 per 100 for women with regular cycles, 8.0 per 100 women for the postpartum and breastfeeding women, and 4.3 per 100 for women with irregular menstrual cycles.
Typical use effectiveness of 93.3% is not bad at all - very comparable to the pill.
The version I use and will teach my daughters is the Sympto-Thermal method with a Doeringer rule - like the Sensiplan. I would give them special thermometers to wear at night which only need to be synced about once a week (unless you really want sex, in which case they get synced every morning.) For the Sensiplan Method:
After 13 cycles, 1.8 per 100 women of the cohort experienced an unintended pregnancy; 9.2 per 100 women dropped out because of dissatisfaction with the method; the pregnancy rate was 0.6 per 100 women and per 13 cycles when there was no unprotected intercourse in the fertile time.
This is comparable to an IUD.
Trust me, I have done the research on this. It is literally impossible to get pregnant on phase III (three days after ovulation to the start of menses), if your phase I is longer than 6 days. I've had to rely on this knowledge many a time and it doesn't fail. If I have sex anywhere near a fertile window, I get pregnant immediately (I have learned.)
Edit to add an article on the "teach teenagers to be aware of their cycle" thing: https://naturalwomanhood.org/cycle-mindfulness-what-happens-when-you-teach-fertility-awareness-to-teen-girls/
Here is what she found out: for 90% of the girls in the program who had ended up in jail, it happened during the premenstrual phase of her cycle...
One of the documented outcomes of Teen STAR’s work is the much lower likelihood for these girls to engage in premature sexual activities. The program was evaluated by ChildTrends, a leading U.S. nonprofit research organization, which reported “that this program is effective in reducing the rate of pregnancy, delaying the onset of sexual activity, decreasing sexual activity in sexually-active youth, and improving attitudes towards abstinence, compared with students in the no-treatment groups.”
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5mo ago
Does anyone else find Elon Musk supremely anti-photogenic, in the sense that every photo of him looks awkward and unappealing?
I respect his business skills, but he could have used some time at a finishing school. Needs a Princess Diaries makeover.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
8mo ago
This article is from a historian who thinks Trump is fascist. He points to these specific things:
- Exalts the Nation and Often Race Above the Individual
Donald Trump claims immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our nation,” a turn of phrase used by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf. He also vilifies racial or quasi-racial groups: Nazis spread libels about Jews, Trump falsely spreads baseless rumors about Haitian immigrants, “they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” warns his followers that “Your children are in danger. You can’t go to school with these people [immigrants], these people are from a different planet.” In his first campaign, he promised what he described as a “Muslim ban.”
There are plans to operationalize these views, including the creation of mass detention (concentration?) camps to facilitate mass deportations, which Trump has made clear will include at least some immigrants currently in the country legally.
- Associated with a Centralized Autocratic Government Headed by a Dictatorial Leader
This one is almost too easy: Trump says, “‘You’re not going to be a dictator are you?’ I said ‘No, no, no, other than day one.” And later, “I only want to be a dictator for one day.” Please scroll up to see how other grants of ‘temporary’ dictatorial powers to fascists turned out. It is a claim he has reiterated, rather than softened.
- Severe Economic and Social Regimentation
Trump also proposes to radically restructure the US economy through an across-the-board 20% tariff on all goods entering the United States, discouraging trade. That’s actually a very traditional fascist economic policy: fascist governments tend to favor ‘autarky‘ – closed, self-sufficient economic systems (Adam Tooze in his book Wages of Destruction goes in to extensive detail on Nazi dreams of autarky) though they don’t generally achieve autarky because it turns out that it is a terrible economic system that doesn’t work very well. Still, massive across the board tariffs certainly seem to count as severe economic regimentation.
- Forcible Suppression of Opposition
Trump has said that there is an “enemy within” which he would handle with military force. Asked to clarify who he meant as the “enemy within” he has clarified that he means political opponents like Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff. Asked to back off this rhetoric, he has instead doubled down on it, expanding his ‘enemies’ to include the press. He’s also threatened members of the January 6 Select Committee, declaring “they should be sent to jail,” and is now on social media threatening to prosecute anyone he claims ‘cheated’ against him, keeping in mind that Trump falsely claims he was cheated in the last election, a point on which no court in the land agrees.
Note as well how the Italian fascists suppressed political opposition not through state action but through state inaction – by refusing to stop their squads of violent thugs who were intimidating and murdering opponents. Likewise, Trump has promised repeatedly to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists, “on day one”, effectively a promise of impunity for his most violent supporters.
I think this is all kind of ridiculous, and if these four items are the mark of Fascism, then I could easily make a comparison to the Democratic party.
- Exalts the Nation and Often Race Above the Individual
DEI, Affirmative Action, celebrating immutable traits over individual accomplishment, etc.
- Associated with a Centralized Autocratic Government Headed by a Dictatorial Leader
Which party would like to give power back to the states on issues like school choice, abortion, etc? And which party in contrast has been encouraging centralized power? Which party wants to remove the electoral college and pack the Supreme Court the minute they lost control of it?
- Severe Economic and Social Regimentation
Which side wanted vaccine passports and to shut down "non-essential businesses?" Which side is currently arguing for price ceilings?
- Forcible Suppression of Opposition
Which side is currently prosecuting a politician under "novel legal theories?" Which side has been calling for censoring political opponents on social media?
It seems to me that Fascism (and in the downstream, Nazi-ism) has features that has always been acceptable in the United States in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Being able to compare your political enemies to Nazis is just a matter of who has control of the talking heads at this time.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
11mo ago
A while back I made a controversial comment that was along the lines of "When women dress sexy, they don't really understand what it's signaling to a guy. They want to be beautiful, like a sunset, and these are the clothes society is telling them makes them beautiful." A lot of men have a hard time believing it, but it really does tie in to a completely different understanding of sex between the sexes.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
Consider also in Camp: this is terrible:
Trump did not do anything that was technically illegal. There is nothing illegal about paying someone to sign an NDA. A former chairman of the FEC is on the record as saying this expenditure does not count as a campaign expenditure. Smith also commented:
Suppose Trump had used campaign funds to pay off these women. Does anyone much doubt that many of the same people now after Trump for using corporate funds, and not reporting them as campaign expenditures, would then be claiming that Trump had illegally diverted campaign funds to “personal use”? Or that federal prosecutors would not have sought a guilty plea from Cohen on that count?
There is, at the least, reasonable doubt that this action was illegal, and the standard for convicting someone of a felony is beyond a reasonable doubt.
This reminds me of another recent tragic event. A new mother in Italy fell asleep while nursing her baby. She had been left alone in her hospital room with no one allowed to visit or help. While asleep, she crushed and killed her newborn.
This tragic event has lead to a large number of Italian mothers talking about how they had been in similar dangerous situations. When they asked for help from medical staff, they were told that other mothers are able to take care of their newborns after childbirth, the mothers need to stop being lazy. This was after major abdominal surgery (C-sections), medical complications of blood loss, etc.
Pregnancy and the post natal period is really hard on a woman. The hormone changes are immense. Mom Genes is a good book to read on the topic, but to give it the personal angle:
The first night we brought my first baby back from the hospital, I remember her staying awake all night, eating. I couldn't put her down. I had trouble getting out of bed. I sat there in the long hours of the night, my husband asleep next to me, and sobbed as quietly as I could manage. I didn't want to be a bother and wake him. I didn't know how I could live another moment without sleep. I had just gone through a physically exhausting and torturous experience. I had torn myself while giving birth to the point they had to cauterize my clitoral hood. I needed rest and healing. I was mommy now and had to do it alone, like all the pioneer women before me. I felt like I had made a huge mistake. My husband needed to rest. He had stayed up at the hospital the night before. I wasn't ready to be a mom. I didn't want to be a bother.
In the morning my husband took the baby away from me and we settled into sleeping in shifts. Nursing meant that I never got more than a couple hours of sleep at a time, but eventually I began to heal.
There was a moment several months later when my daughter choked while drinking milk and I just kind of sat there, staring at her. "She's not breathing," I said aloud, emotionless. I didn't move her into a better position or do anything. My husband came over and held her on his arm, whacked her back like the baby heimlech. She cleared her passage and started eating again like nothing was wrong. My husband thought I panicked and froze. I can't actually remember what I was thinking at the time, but afterwards I connected the event with my thoughts and emotions on the second day of her life - that I wasn't ready for a kid, that I should have waited for a better time.
The next time my daughter choked while nursing I held her on my forearm, jaw between my finger and thumb, and firmly wacked her on her back with my other forearm, just like I learned in lifeguard training a decade prior. I didn't freeze. I didn't ponder deep thoughts. I was her mother and her only defense against a harsh biology that wants infants dead.
My second child was much easier the first three months, though I became depressed the second three months (a depression that went away by eating fermented food. What's up with that?). My third child also went well and I was actually filled with immense energy the two weeks after his birth. Then I noticed that I had lost both all religious feeling and all belief in the legibility of the universe, rationality itself. Both senses came back around his first birthday.
The point isn't that the Boston woman was correct to kill her kids, or does not face some sort of culpability for killing her kids. My point is that the post partum period is weird and has unpredictable effects on a mother's brain. We can probably find better ways to make not killing kids attractive to psychotic mothers. Does society have a responsibility to do so? I don't know. I don't think that the threat of being locked up in prison is enough incentive to someone whose mind is already in their own circle of hell.
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