Supah_Schmendrick
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User ID: 618
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
I believe its legal now in half the US states, plus all of Canada. I would hardly call that "a few places"
Mere legality isn't what @MadMomzer was talking about. They were referring to a norm where marijuana "is sufficiently embedded in the culture and used by sufficiently large number of respectable, otherwise-law-abiding citizens (including cops, politicians, judges, etc.) that banning it will do more damage to the rule of law than to [users]." Do you think legalization is necessarily equivalent to that?
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Because they prioritized, and therefore optimized for, getting into those institutions more than others (arguably too much, because Goodhart's law will always have its due).
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Jewish population of Harvard is about 10%
Given that 2/3rds of non-orthodox jews (i.e. the rich and successful ones living in big liberal coastal cities likely to send their kids to harvard instead of a yeshiva) marry gentiles, that 10% is mostly yankee anyway.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Why, in eight years, haven't MAGA Republicans built any real organization outside of Trump's personality?
Because the footsoldiers and bureaucrats who build those organizations (attorneys, accountants, policy-wonks and other recent elite-college grads willing to swallow low salaries in exchange for proximity to power and influence) are overwhelmingly not MAGA, and even not Republican.
Why, in eight years, is there no political heir to Trumpism?
Because Trump has a lot more name-recognition than any other politician, and has a plurality of personal loyalists. He's also very good at attacking rivals, gets basically infinite amounts of free media from mainstream and liberal outlets horrified by him (but who don't realize that their coverage backfires and helps Trump with his base), and the people who rose to challenge him are either out-of-step with the modern conservative electorate (Nikki Haley) or too-online and actually not all that charismatic (DeSantis)
Why, in eight years, isn't there a policy apparatus behind Trump that Trump won't disavow?
Because that would tie Trump to something that he didn't dream up, and his personal policy is basically an anti-NAFTA 1980's Blue Dog Democrat. His genius, such as it is, lies in realizing that policy rhetoric doesn't actually matter all that much.
Why, in eight years, do we lack any MAGA candidates in the Capitol or Governor's Mansions who aren't complete weirdoes?
Because MAGA is so incredibly low-status among wealthy and white-collar folks that only the complete weirdoes are willing to tie themselves to it. Also, Trump has a bad habit of cannibalizing his own supporters to buoy his own efforts. (Does DeSantis count as a weirdo in your view? If so, he's awfully effective for a weirdo)
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
I have to admit that I'm disappointed the microphones will be muted except during designated response times, because it denies us the (admittedly small) chance that, when Kamala tried to talk over a moderator, Trump could butt in with "Excuse Me, ECKS-CYUSE ME, SHE'S SPEAKING!! COMMIE-LA IS SPEAKING!! VERY RUDE!!"
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Ending wars was so popular that Biden also basically didn't start any new wars.
To be fair to the poor old man, Biden himself was notably part of the "peace wing" in the Obama administration - he opposed getting involved in Libya
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Being exempted from laws because of an adherence to a particular faith seems to be exactly what the constitution wanted to prevent.
You agree with Justice Scalia circa 1990 on this, but it's a nuanced issue that has been going the other way in recent years.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
why don't we torch the whole legal system? It has been misused by bad actors from time to time, I think we could both find examples of this.
As a lawyer, much of it is in need of torching, or at least disassembly and reconstruction.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Except our version of the Amazon - the Mississippi basin - has incredible natural soil quality while as I understand it the actual Amazon does not.
TBH a Mega!Israel with most/all of pre-WWII European Jewry transplanted there* would probably have colonized out to the historic borders of the old Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem at this point just through population pressure, let alone the Jabotinsky's of the world.
*in 1948 the new nation of Israel had about 650k Jews in it, give or take. If we add in appx. 50% of the 1933 Jewish populations of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Romania (an estimate attempting to allow for for stay-behinds, pogrom-victims, or emigres to other places like the US), we turbocharge that to 3,700,000. For context, Jordan had appx. 500k people in 1948. Syria had about 3.25 million. Lebanon had about 1.3 million. Arabs would have been absolutely swamped all across the Levant, and if it had come to war as it did historically, God alone knows what would have happened. And if we assume the same rate of population growth as historically, in this alternate Mega!Israel, that would mean 50 million Jews running around the holy land today.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
I disagree; the diplomatic and political maneuvering in the weeks and months leading up to the initial declarations of war - let alone the actual first acts of armed hostility - are much more complex. I recommend Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers and Sean McMeekin's July 1914: Countdown to War. They reach different conclusions, but are both magisterial overviews of the subject.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Napoleon has all of these. It's arguable which one tops the other on either point but they are compared often for a reason.
Napoleon is one of the most noteworthy figures in history.
The scale of the industrial killing is also very comparable to Stalin's.
Yes, the forced resettlement of millions and the complete subjugation and remaking of the USSR under Stalin is also one of the most notable and interesting (though macabre and sinister) phases in modern history.
Hitler was not Franco, or Mussolini, or Vargas, or any of the other tin-pot dictators of the period. He was, no matter how you slice it, one of the Great Horrors. Perhaps, with the passage of enough centuries, he, Stalin, and Mao will be remembered like we remember Tamerlane or Ghengis Khan, the bloodiness of their deeds overshadowed by the alien, bygone nature of their world. But they will be remembered as Great Horrors all the same.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
I've heard historians argue that the british government's legal counsel had advised that the 1839 treaty could be worked around. And in any event the UK went in before the invasion of Belgium - Grey's famous speech to parliament is all based upon assumptions and diplomatic insinuations, not any concrete actions by the Germans. Once the Brits were in, there was no incentive for the Germans not to go through Belgium.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Are you trying to argue that the invasion and occupation of Belgium in 1914 was somehow accidental?
I'm trying to argue that it shouldn't have come to a general war in the first place.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
unremarkable despotism
It's plenty remarkable for a lot of reasons. First, the soap-opera drama of the Nazi rise is just incredible. If it weren't so horrifying, you could make a dozen comic soap operas out of it. Second, the remarkable run of wild success that Hitler's early-career gambles met with is fascinating. There were generals locking themselves in their offices with nervous breakdowns over the Anschluss, the handling of the Sudenten crisis, the invasion of the rump Czechoslovak state, Fall Weiss, and Fall Gelb...and somehow each one worked out fantastically in Hitler's favor. Even the amazing success of the Wehrmacht at the beginning of Barbarossa was down to ridiculously good timing (catching the Soviets forward-deployed for an invasion to the West...but not yet on a war footing) and a shocking case of the normally-wily Stalin suddenly grabbing onto the idiot-ball of world-history with both hands. Third, the speed at which things broke down for the Nazis is just as vertiginous, and makes an equally-interesting story. And of course fourth, the sheer industrial scale of the killing achieved through bureaucracy is itself a modern marvel, and a sobering reminder to western, advanced, industrialized nations that we are not exempt from the blood-lust we might otherwise be tempted to put down to the savagery of less-enlightened souls (the Khmer Rouge, the Rwandan Hutu, the Young Turks, etc.)
From the british perspective WWI starts with the invasion of Belgium.
Well, it actually started with the Franco-British staff talks, the 1904 Franco-British agreement on naval responsibilities in the Mediterranean and North Sea vis. the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, and the fear of the Liberal cabinet in 1914 that failing to take a hard line on Germany would result in the fall of the cabinet (the PM and FM were both implicated in secret back-channel negotiations with the French which, had the UK not supported France against Germany, would have been immensely personally and politically damaging to them and probably required resignation) and the likely installation of the Tories, who would be bellicose anyway and (in the view of the liberals) also likely spark civil war over the Irish question. The Belgium question was just the tripwire.
Germany went full "might makes right" and "no laws but man's"
No, they bungled what should have been a decent and defensible position in support of an ally who had been the subject of an organized assassination plot from a rogue state sponsor of terrorism. Frankly, the Russians and Austrians both bear at least as much guilt for the onset of general war as the Germans, and probably more.
thus they rendered their destruction necessary for the survival of the wider west.
Ironic, because at the time Germany was arguably the leading light of the west, at least in scientific and cultural matters.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
While I think there's some validity to the claim that they'd just do it elsewhere without Israel, I think all those other laundering operations should be shut down as well - so the claim that it would be them if it wasn't Israel is just a non-starter.
I mean, I agree that it's not good, and we shouldn't do it. That kind of graft is really dumb - if we want to give an ally military gear, just give them the gear. If we want to give them money so they can buy the gear they want, give them money. I don't see how agreeing on a need for Foreign Aid and Pentagon Procurement reform does anything about the prevalence of current practices, though.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
One can argue that the UK got WWI because they were too obsessed with trying to balance (or at least because Grey and French were). And after the horror that was WWI, it's completely understandable why the Brits would have a reflexive allergy against an assertive and powerful Germany, specifically. After all, what was the point of the millions and millions dead and maimed, including the best and brightest of a whole generation, if it only bought thirty years before the Boche came back, and this time in an even less couth guise than the Kaiser? It's the ultimate sunk cost.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
From first principles, wouldn't you assume that if the US cabinet and White House was full of names like Chang, Zhang, Yuan and Dongfeng, the US would lean more pro-China than makes strategic sense?
Not necessarily. I could also paint a just-so story that diaspora emigres could be significantly more hawkish towards the governing regime of the land of their birth if it's out of step with their personal values - a cabinet full of Miami Cubans wouldn't be pro-Castro. And indeed, because U.S. Jews are overwhelmingly liberal, secularized, and assimilated, support for Netanyahu's nationalist government was a minority position in the U.S. before and after 10/7.
Certain items would never make it onto agendas, some policies would be carried out enthusiastically and others would be given up at the first sign of trouble. People could find reasons why military aid to China was a good thing - stabilizing the region, countering Russia, Vietnam and so on. They could find reasons why China causing problems for the US was acceptable, they have certain legitimate interests and mistakes happen. They could create framing where China is a traditional ally of America, we fought together in WW2 against those awful Japanese, it's a vital trading partner, predestined to be a superpower...
Yes, but people do this all the time for all sorts of reasons unrelated to ethnicity; allegedly FDR had a soft spot for the Chinese because his family had a longstanding history of involvement in the China trade and with yankee missionary efforts over there. Similarly the british foreign establishment has had a reputation of being fairly arabist without any significant muslim or arab component in british society; they just felt more comfortable with those relationships. Almost nothing works on hard strategic logic.
Alternately, if the US cabinet was full of Muhammeds and Husseins, I expect Israel would encounter lots of problems. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are amongst the least pro-Israel politicians in America.
Sure, but I don't know how to disentangle their ethnic and religious interests from contemporary American leftism, which is quite happily third world-ist and "anti-colonial" without any arab/muslim immigrant help.
People have natural sympathies for those of the same race and creed.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
Except balance of power politics had been British strategy for centuries at this point
Everyone always says this, but I'm not so sure. The Brits had no problem with a post-Napoleonic Europe dominated by Russia and Austria in the Holy Alliance; France was prostrate and Prussia was small and reforming. Sure, Britain pushed back against Russia when it started pushing up against British interests in the middle east and India (e.g. the Crimean War), but other than that the Brits held themselves aloof.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
The 2008 law merely codifies longstanding US policy. Said policy helped drive Israel's Arab neighbours towards the Soviet Union (who would sell them military equipment).
To my knowledge (though I'm not an expert) the first time the U.S. provided military aid to Israel was '73 under Nixon, and Nasser didn't need any push to be pro-Soviet; it fell right in line with his third-world-ist, anti-colonial rhetoric. Even then, we were the ones to step in and save him from the Brits, French, and Israelis. But for the U.S., there's an alternate world where the Suez Canal is still run by the Brits, with Israeli troops and settlements on the eastern side. Surely that's a world where the Jews have a lot more power than the current one - so why did we intervene? Why didn't the Jews win on that one?
Your own link says that $330 Billion went to Israel. The budget for 2023 was $6 trillion, so the real answer is 5% of the 2023 budget.
Thank you for the correction; I am sloppy with math. I have edited the post to reflect this.
$330 billion is a lot of money.
Over 40 years? On the brobdignagian scale the U.S. does military-industrial things with? Maybe it's the last couple administrations, but I have a hard time getting worked up about US overspending on things to make defense contractors (or, more recently, community activists) rich. It's just a cruddy fact of life.
Still more was lost as a result of the Arab Oil Embargo, stemming from Arabs angry with US aid to Israel.
Yeah, that one stung in the 70's, but it's 50 years old. OPEC doesn't have that kind of power any more, not since the shale revolution.
There is no reason to give foreign countries grants to buy equipment.
Sure there is; it funnels money to defense contractors, but it also ensures that the equipment is actually used in a conflict so we can get data back on how it performs.
Funnily enough the rivers of gold only opened up when Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, in 1978
Yes, this is the "carrot" part of "carrot and stick" diplomacy. You reward friends for doing what you want, and punish enemies who do things you don't want.
Jordan has no supply routes worth caring about
Sure, because letting that country collapse and become the personal playground of the irredentist Palestinian national movement - a movement which even in the 70's showed a marked proclivity to actions harmful to western interests - wouldn't have any negative consequences for anyone except Israel.
Supah_Schmendrick
1yr ago
The graft and bloat isn't good, just inevitable. If it wasn't getting laundered through Israel, it would be getting laundered through South Korea, Japan, Australia, the Saudis, etc.
The US has a policy of ensuring that Israel has a qualitative military advantage over any plausible combination of Middle East powers.
Since 2008. Extremely GWoT-pilled. What harm, exactly, is this doing to our policy in the region other than generating more $120,000/yr. paperwork compliance jobs for folks living in Falls Church? Were we on the cusp of selling F-35s to the Iranians? Is Egypt making a better case to advance our interests in the region?
This includes billions annually in military aid to Israel and refusing to export advanced weapons to other regional powers.
The sum-total of all U.S. aid to Israel since its founding 75 years ago is about 0.5% [Edit: /u/Randomranger is correct, this should be 5%; I make sloppy math mistakes] of the 2023 US budget spend. Also, that includes money for highly-productive joint research and development projects, and billions upon billions in laundered subsidies for U.S. military-industrial conglomerates (i.e. grants which can only be used to purchase equipment/services from U.S. firms), both of which we would want done anyway even if Israel wasn't the one doing it.
The US even gives aid to Israel's neighbours for maintaining good relations with Israel.
You're right, there couldn't possibly be any other rationale for paying regimes on top of major trade and international supply routes to not blow each other's major infrastructure up. Has to be the nefarious influence of da Joos.
From my own personal experience as someone who has never been able to bring myself to give two shits about "self-improvement culture," object-level stuff, mostly. Work and whether I should apply to a new job or try for advancement at my current employer; the Napoleonic Wars or whatever other period of history has grabbed my interest recently; the podcast I am listening to; whether my favorite baseball team would be better or worse if they traded for someone or called up the hot prospect du jour; how to reply to the latest interesting post here; whether my car needs an oil change, etc.
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