Pongalh
1d ago
There's a brass tacks, Anglo-libertarian bias to a lot of these responses, which I also share. But to hear Catholic Integralists e.g. speak of vigilance in their statecraft as soul craft agenda, I can see them being as dedicated to policing people's hearts and minds in a way on par with communists.
Pongalh
7d ago
Would you say the black person who says, "I don't want to be assumed to vote Democrat just because I'm black" is more sympathetic to this SCOTUS decision than one who's fine with that assumption?
Pongalh
9d ago
"Agreed. And if critics of Israel would regularly acknowledge this, I would be much less likely to conclude that they have "sinister motives" as you put it."
But when people call out Israel for not sharing our values (in being an ethno-religious state), that's also called Antisemitic. As it stands, I feel like I'm being asked to pick a side in the Shia vs. Sunni dispute. I say the line is being drawn arbitrarily. The whole intra-Middle East dispute spectrum, which includes the Israeli pov, is ALL awful.
Pongalh
9d ago
Yes, just assume that the critics already know these other things and that focusing on Israeli, er, malfeasance has sinister motives. That their not talking about violence and horribleness that afflicts Sub-Saharan Africans etc. must be due to a suspiciously strange obsession with Israel, which is just a random country like Bulgaria or Turkmenistan that is being unfairly singled out.
"Can you explain what this means?"
That they are a longstanding and obvious ally, an outpost of our Western way of life in the Middle East that is fundamentally on a higher moral plane (likewise, that even if you agree, you don't think Israel's problems should be our problems; nope, not good enough, it just MUST be Jew hatred.)
Pongalh
9d ago
When you criticize or condemn Israel for something, do you criticize or condemn other countries that behave similarly or worse?
Do you care about the treatment of the Palestinian Arabs? If so, how do you feel about the treatment of Palestinian Arabs by Arab countries such as Lebanon?
These kinds of whataboutisms chalk up to antisemitism what is really about a lack of cognitive omnipotence. (Or the fact that Americans aren't allegedly joined morally at the hip with the Arab World, but they are with Israel, making criticisms more tempting.)
Pongalh
9d ago
"I'm particularly interested in the answer because I am situated in the category whose existence you appear to deny (no issue with Jews as an ethnicity or religion, large issue with the state of Israel in its current form - not even as a theoretical concept, as I've previously argued they should have just taken some land from the Germans and founded it on the Baltic coast back in 1945 instead)."
That pro-Israel classical liberals can't see this as the same nonsense that conflates the NAACP with all black people is beyond me. My theory: Jewish identity politics for some on the right is the one identity politics to rule them all. Meaning, its correctness is positively correlated with the incorrectness of all the other, admittedly more odious and societally detrimental kinds of identity politics.
"There can be no absence of identity politics, so choose the relatively best one, which also happens to nullify the other, worse ones! Yes, it means being hyperbolic and engaging in disingenuous rhetoric, but that's the price to pay, and it's worth it."
Pongalh
11d ago
Someone on this forum pointed out that the ability to make more people without men and women having sex at all is technologically possible. So don't sweat it!
Pongalh
11d ago
Doesn't research claim women are unhappier than men? That recent UK polling data certainly claimed that, despite women officially doing better than men. AFAIK being unhappier makes you worse off, period. So don't sweat it!
Pongalh
15d ago
Unless you're asking the bottom of society? In other words, the people who become nurses?
Pongalh
16d ago
And they make good money doing this so there's no clear reason they should stop.
Makes you wonder how. Presumably people with "real" jobs and things happening outside of streaming are sending them money?
Pongalh
16d ago
Arnold Kling reviewed that book and noted its representation of a drift away from democratic capitalism's defense of the small man and their petty consumer desires. Not very Milton Friedman-esque. Karp's is a more muscular, great state-driven neoliberalism.
Pongalh
30d ago
All this to say: I think I'm just going to be unapologetically ruled by my aesthetic sense from now on, and say that we can allow some grace
It's like coming full circle. The pre-politically interested child who makes superficial comments about a politician's appearance had it right all along. "He blinks too much!" or "he's fat like Santa" was all the political philosophy you need, turns out.
Pongalh
1mo ago
I think of young women's reaction to e.g. the character Jesse from Breaking Bad and feel your comment is spot-on.
Pongalh
1mo ago
Really? But we all know, or know of, losers who manage to shake off responsibility for bad stuff but embrace responsibility for good stuff.
Pongalh
1mo ago
I love comments like these that turn the entirety of Judge Judy-style Conservative Inc. on its head. The loudmouth baby mama with four kids by three abusive men who can't hold down a job is the societal winner; that is, in the competition with the childless professional with a good head on her shoulder. She managed to reproduce, did she not? Case closed.
Pongalh
1mo ago
Stunning inability? Maritime insurance rates weren't through the roof five minutes ago. Now they are.
This isn't making excuses for someone who's been arrested 30 times. Don't abuse the agency argument.
Pongalh
1mo ago
You get kudos for reading any of those as far as I'm concerned. Last time I read any fiction my midwit ass was reading those paperbacks based on the Aliens franchise, with cool space marines on the cover.
Pongalh
1mo ago
Well, Trump didn't even bother trying to convince a domestic audience. Compact has a good overview of the collapse in basic propaganda efforts: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-GEcO360z1g&t=1484s
Pongalh
1mo ago
It is beginning to look like the previous US presidents who for the most part did not bomb Iran were not just bleeding heart pacifists but had sound strategic reasons not to bomb them, and that attacking Iran was a mistake.
Hear ye!
Pongalh
1mo ago
The Grok app no longer allows me to generate videos. It went from 50 a day (!) to zero. I have to pay 30 a month for Super Grok.
Thing is, on desktop I can still generate videos (though unclear if they're still so generous as to give me 50) with my 13/month Premium X membership. Go figure. It's interrupted my mostly mobile "flow" but at least I'm not cut off completely.
Pongalh
1mo ago
State lotteries directly promote vice. Can we start with ending those? How much are people supposed to tolerate transparent hypocrisy? I know, I know, hypocrisy is not the worst thing. But you don't have to make it official and ludicrously overt.
Malcom Collins actually agrees that the depiction of the child is a bit off, giving the pedo accusers something to latch on to. Strangely adult features on what is supposed to be a child (in which case, robbing it of what is supposed to be attractive to a pedo, come to think of it, defeating the point?).
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