Soriek
11mo ago
I‘m fine with people carrying and using guns, tasers, and pepper spray in self defense. Not that these are valid comparisons, the latter two are pretty obviously less likely to result in a dead guy than choking.
Strange how there are exactly zero responsible and reasonable uses of force, at least after the fact if something goes badly and someone dies.
Maybe you think you’re responding to someone other than the guy who’s said like five times that lethal force could be valid in this situation.
Soriek
2mo ago
Isn't the obvious objection here that during the first period, citizenship and power in institutions mostly rested with WASPs and similar demographics while in the second one, although immigration had been restricted, now a large share of the native born population consisted of (descendants of) Italians, Irish etc., i.e. ethnic groups that down to the present day have markedly different attitudes towards redistribution or even things like free speech in comparison to English- or German-Americans?
I've seen people try to track with data that various European groups have consistent attitudes on policy over time, but I feel like it's pretty hard to square with how things actually worked in practice. Those same ethnic groups that supported the New Deal democrat party also supported the Democrats when they were the extreme laissez faire, anti-interventionist party, while the WASP-dominant Republicans were much more pro-intervention. I think an easier explanation is just that immigrants probably cluster around the pro-immigration party. The bulk of Irish and German immigration happened in the mid nineteenth century, but it wasn't till the better part of a century later than they (and southern whites and many other native demographics) were sold on more statist policies, so it's hard to draw a straight line from their entry into America towards larger redistribution.
I'd wager that continually adding more people who come from countries that practice more distribution and, when asked in surveys like the GSS, explicitly say that the government should intervene more and reduce income inequality, will in fact eventually result in a society that redistributes more and values economic freedom less.
This was the OP's wager as well and it's not unreasonable. But I don't think it's a claim we see much demonstrated in our own long history of mass immigration. Also worth remembering that immigrants are not perfectly representative of their own countries. The kind of person who crosses an ocean or a desert to start life all over is gonna be a little unique.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting you or you meant spending coming back down from the highs of WWII, this claim doesn't seem true, whether for overall spending or social spending in particular, both of which have a strong upward trend starting in the early 20th century.
You're right, I overstated his actual claim, which was that the rate of growth of spending as a percent of GDP slowed.
The federal government radically restricted immigration from 1922 to 1967, when federal expenditures grew from 4.5 percent to 18.3 percent - a four-fold increase...In the 45 years after the modest immigration liberalization of the late 1960s, federal expenditures climbed to 20.6 percent, a mere 8.7 percent increase...The New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, the Great Society, and other large expansions of government all happened when the border was closed.
From the Civil War till WW1, the heyday of mass immigration, federal expenditures as a percent of GDP stay barely above 0% and even fell over time.
You want to take the chance on the Guatemalan plumber? The tree of liberty is watered by the blood of patriots?
?
Guatemalan tradesman are pretty normal in America. As far as I know there is no constituency of people demanding government retribution for Mayan house-flooding practices.
Soriek
4mo ago
Notably these are the highest tax areas in the United States. My point is redistribution has a pretty questionable impact on innovation and growth.
Soriek
5mo ago
Many thanks, it can definitely be time consuming prepping these so it's good to here people are enjoying them. I would definitely be interested in the Russian program; in general I feel like this place could benefit from regular updates on Russia (and China for that matter) from people more knowledgable than me.
Soriek
5mo ago
Thanks for the update into the budget process. Do you have any insight into how the snap election will go?
Soriek
5mo ago
Spain
I’ve covered the seemingly stillwater results of the Spanish election that happened all the way back in July. With both the left and right deadlocked and competing for third parties, things looked dangerously close to going to yet another election. However, incumbent Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has finally managed to secure another term. He did it by finally relenting to the demands of the Catalan separatist party Junts to grant amnesty for people who participated in the referendum, including the Junts leader in exile, Carles Puigdemont. This is a significantly unpopular move, even within Sanchez’ own party. Reportedly about 70% of Spanish citizens oppose amnesty and if another election was held the left would likely do much worse. However, it was the only way Sanchez stood a chance at staying in power. Jacobin adds more detail on what to expect:
this will be a minority government formed by the PSOE (121 seats) and Sumar (31 seats), the radical-left coalition led by Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz. Yet this executive will also depend for its survival on the votes of so-called peripheral Spain, i.e., the various regionalist and nationalist parties from Catalonia (Junts per Catalunya and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), who hold seven seats each), the Basque Country (Partido Nacionalista Vasco, five seats, and EH Bildu, six), Galicia (Bloque Nacionalista Galego, one seat) and the Canary Islands (Coalición Canaria, one seat)...
the road ahead is not easy. With such a broad and composite majority, every vote in parliament may turn into a quagmire, with a real risk that Sánchez’s new cabinet may not last. The parties that backed Sánchez know that letting this government fail would mean handing Spain over to the Right. Yet goodwill often isn’t enough. How will it be possible to reconcile radical-left Sumar’s agenda on social policies, progressive taxation, or housing, with right-wingers in the Partido Nacionalista Vasco, Junts per Catalunya, or Coalición Canaria?
Soriek
5mo ago
How many Marxists do you think are in the Democrat party? This is an extremely tiny group of people who consider the Democrats just as right wing as Republicans.
Soriek
5mo ago
Republicans are usually much less supportive of intervening into other countries - even tyrannical ones - when they don't mess with us.
This is a highly dubious claim to begin with, and largely belies your broader point about Democrats being the ones soft on foreign tyrants.
If you look from proclamations to actual actions, though, you see that the policy towards tyrannical regimes is always softened - that happened with Obama, and that is also happening with whoever pulls Biden's strings, which some say is the same Obama. Be it Iran, be it Cuba, be it China - beyond some perfunctory words, it's never any serious action. In fact, it's plenty of the actions in the opposite directions.
This is not true. Both parties have launched waves of targeted sanctions on ML countries, overseen covert and cyop warfare agaimst them, and found ways to support their opposition (Obama backed Capriles against Chavez before anyone had heard of Guaidó). Likewise, both parties have considered softening their stance for progress on things we care about: Obama considered rapproachment with a neutered, non-threat Cuba; Trump considered rapproachment with a nuclear armed North Korea regularly threatening us and our allies.
I don't know what these NGOs have in their files, deep in their computer drives, but if you look on their public stance, the impression one gets is that there's about two countries that ever commit human rights crimes worth discussing - one of them is the US, and you can easily guess the second one.
Human Rights Watch, Amnsety International, etc, write about human rights abuses in Marxist countries regularly on their public websites.
Well, if we talk about the whole century, the Democrat party wasn't as thoroughly infiltrated by the Marxists as they are now.
Soriek
5mo ago
Honestly you may well be right - it sounds like you’ve see much more of the show than I have!
Soriek
5mo ago
Haha what a resume padder. I would definitely be interested in reading more.
Soriek
5mo ago
Sorry I should have been more specific I'm talking about Greece. At least my impression is that when far right folks invoke the Bronze Age, they are also mostly talking about Greece and using the Iliad vs Odyssey as primary material instead of Gilgamesh or the the Story of Sinuhe
Soriek
5mo ago
But these are totally different places and eras. I'm talking about the society depicted in the Iliad, Greece around the 1100s. Maybe we could get hints at it from more contemporary literature from other places, but Gilgamesh is about a society 1000 years earlier.
Soriek
6mo ago
Plus one for Pale Fire, such a creative and interesting book. I need to read the rest of his works at some point.
Soriek
6mo ago
I have nothing super insightful to add, just thought this was a great post. Adaptations and repurposing cultural narratives are as told as time and as trad as Rome.
Soriek
6mo ago
Yeah, the hearing the OP was from focused on a shortage of workers in nursing homes. There were a few people who ran nursing home systems as witnesses, no one suggested they or anyone else were evil or uncooperative.
Soriek
6mo ago
I’m terribly sorry to hear everything you’ve been through and I hope very much your luck turns around.
From that position? You lock your bicep on one side of the neck and forearm on the other, then pin that hand to your other upper arm to keep it locked. Then take your other hand and push down on the back of the head and it’ll cut off bloodflow, causing someone to go unconscious. It looks like this all together.
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