anti_dan
2yr ago
I participate or participated in many online video game communities. What you are describing as niceness = left wing is probably as far from the truth as I can imagine. The only area where is could plausibly be true is commenting on weirdness or grossness. It seems that leftists typically embrace weirdness like over the top piercings and tattoos or fat-embracing etc more than those on the right, and so you do get left wing moderation by banning negative comments about people's appearance, delinquent drug use, cheating on partners, fathering/mothering multiple bastards, etc. Basically, if you ban criticism of weird or bad life choices, yes that results in a leftist shift. But that doesn't get you even 10% to where most of the forums end up drifting.
Where it inevitably ends up is with banning people for anodyne right of center opinions that leftists categorize as "attacks". Illustratively, I was once banned from a Warcraft III forum for "homophobia" aka saying orgies spread STDs. On city-related forum, there was a mass ban of "racists" which was people who had participated in a thread about getting their gaming systems and laptops stolen in home invasions. Not some targeted ban of slur-users, a ban for everyone who was not a mod that participated in the discussion. This is not "niceness" its hounding out dissent because open discussion refutes their worldview.
anti_dan
1yr ago
All this is just the trappings of centrism, and it only works because of media compliance. Imagine some normal Republican acting boring, but doing the reverse of all the Biden things: Siccing the FBI on teachers unions and Planned Parenthood. Multiple investigations into Democrats for things every politician knows they all do. Passing massive budget cuts to 3 letter agencies, welfare, and medicaid. Securing the southern border and expediting deportations.
Could President Mike Lee do all that quietly and be the "kind of president you want?" Of course not, he'd be constantly attacked as a theocratic fascist, and people who want "normalcy" will have it insisted to them that only Democrats can ever be normal. "But Trump" has never been correct. Always remember Rubio was actually worse was a take from one of the smartest and least crazy Democrats.
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/20/11067932/rubio-worse-than-trump
anti_dan
2yr ago
Well, yes? People engaged in political protests don't expect to be treated like carjackers, because they haven't been in a century in the US. The Capitol building is not an illegitimate place to protect (contrast the kid gloves treatment of SCOTUS protestors at their homes), it is, in fact, the MOST legitimate place to protest. Its a political building where politics is done.
That you can be held without bail for wandering in, without them even proving that you knew it was illegal to be there (for most people the barricades had been long abandoned by the incompetent, Pelosi directed, Capitol Police), is Eugene Debbs shit.
anti_dan
11mo ago
I think the education-industrial-complex is probably the driver of the vast majority of these gaps. The male experience in school has become increasingly miserable. And their opinions of the opinions of the overwhelmingly female/feminine teacher class is reflecting a rebellion from those views. Whereas school is now the ultimate feminized environment where traditional female status games are the primary ones that are allowed to exist and are directly encouraged by authority figures.
anti_dan
2yr ago
“When I am Weaker Than You, I ask you for Freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am Stronger than you, I take away your Freedom Because that is according to my principles.”
The Pride community played the victim until they could mock everyone as oppressors. Asking the question is simply a misapplication of mistake theory.
anti_dan
5mo ago
I had a longer post that got eaten. But here it is in short:
Americans aren't turning towards Russia, but some are turning away from Europe. The reason is simple, Europe has picked a side in the American culture war, and it is the far left side. That is not a good formula for maintaining good relations with America because even when we have a Democratic government, you guys are still to the left of it by a lot. There's the immigration piece, the welfare, the speech regulations, the climate alarm. And it doesn't help that Brussels and Berlin's default position is "never compromise".
So now we turn to military spending. Europe has failed at this from not only a monetary perspective, but from a readiness perspective to an even worse degree for decades. And what are you asking Americans to defend (while you certainly attempt to appear unwilling to do so yourselves)? An increasingly authoritarian Bureaucracy who are so intent on being authoritarian they'd rather cripple their own economy than let a little freedom spill out.
So, we are at a point similar to the point where we were around 1916 or so. Is it really wise for the US to jump in yet? I'd argue it was far too early for us in WWI. We should have let the sides bleed a bit more and come in and swept it all aside instead of what we did, which yielded the ineffectual Treaty of Versailles and more conflict just a generation later.
anti_dan
2yr ago
So if the longstanding norm against prosecution can indeed be broken, then under which circumstances?
The answer, quite obviously, is that if the Biden DOJ wanted to signal it was serious about document abuse and not just serious about getting Trump, is they would have combed through all the previous administrations (probably starting with Bush II). Start by nailing someone like Bolton, Condi Rice, etc. Move onto Obama admin bad actors. Clapper and Brennen strike me as particularly arrogant so a raid on them would probably get you 1 of 2. The culmination of going after Obama staffers crescendos with the obvious indictment of Hillary Clinton. Then you go back to some workmanlike prosecutions of Trump staffers (hey maybe a double tap on Bolton) and then the pot o gold at the end of the rainbow is Trump.
That is how a serious person would go about breaking the norm.
anti_dan
11mo ago
I'm a classic 'law and order' conservative and Trump lost me on January 6th.
Which action of his? Organizing a rally in the capital city of the polity he resides? Giving a speech at said rally? Encouraging his attendees of said rally to peacefully march to the most legitimate building to protest around in the capital city of our republic?
Trump certainly did not organize the incompetent security lines. He was not in charge of the police force that managed to let an unarmed crowd of humans sac the equivalent of an 19th century fort by checks notes walking around erratically.
We have laws which brand a person a felon if they are a threat to the public order.
We used to have such laws, and still do. They are what we properly consider felonies: Murder, burglary, embezzlement. Trump didn't do any of those things, he wrote a thing was expense type A, and the prosecutor thought it was expense type B. Neither that, nor campaign finance laws (themselves an assault on our freedom) are proof of a threat to the public order. Rather. The person making such an argument is said threat.
anti_dan
1yr ago
absolutely will not stop here.
Well it certainly didn't start here either. Lawfare being an exclusive tool of the left isn't a stable equilibrium unless the right is totally crushed. Tit was bound to happen eventually.
anti_dan
6mo ago
I saw this MattY thread contemporaneously with him putting it up and I think it is a classic example of left/progressives still not understanding right/conservatives at all.
What MattY and others need to ask is this question: What if people who freaked out about Jan 6 were just...wrong? What if people in Republicans in the orbit of DC that went along with the freakout initially were just swept up in a wave of panic because their neighbors were leftists and probably anxious leftists at that. And I remember Meghan McCain once said about Jan 6 that even going into it she'd never seen the people of DC on such edge. Well what if that was all, when evaluated neutrally, stupid. I think it was. I think most/all of the people who have flipped have flipped in the direction of it being stupid. And people flipping in that direction are correct.
Why?
Well, to start, Jan 6 is initially a political protest of the actions of the government. Held in the capitol city. And it progressed towards the building that houses the members of the government body being protested. In other words, there is no more legitimate time, place, and manner to conduct a protest. They were protesting government actions happening inside a government building in the vicinity of said government building. To think this was an illegitimate protest is to think protest itself is illegitimate, in which case, go join the Moldbug party.
Then what happened? A riot ensued. This happens from time to time with protests. But why did this one become a riot? The answer is simple: Incompetence by government officials. Security was understaffed. They did not establish a proper perimeter. THEY COULDN'T EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW TO CLOSE DOORS AND LOCK THEM. Let us really describe what happened on Jan 6: A cadre of armed men in body armor failed to hold the equivalent of a 16th century fort against unarmed, uncoordinated, mostly old people. They also happened to kill an unarmed woman who was jumping over some hastily assembled chair fort (are the Capitol Police toddlers? why are they making chair forts?).
Further, it has been revealed that intelligence about the size of the crowd was intentionally withheld from the leader of Capital Police. In addition his requests for overtime and other additional staffing requests were refused. In addition his requests for aid by outside agencies both before Jan 6 and on the day of the event were refused and/or delayed by several hours.
On top of that there are the less objective, but still suspicious things like the pipe bombs, Ray Epps, and other things that came out that increasingly made Jan 6 look like it was instigated/manufactured by anti-Republican/Trump elements within the federal government.
What does this boil down to? If you think Jan 6 is/was a big deal you are/were wrong. If you are right of center, there is a good chance you are religious or religious adjacent. If you are religious, what do you do when you were wrong? You repent. Now, Trump is not god, so you need no confess to your priest, but if you are a politician or media personality you need to confess to your constituents/readers. And I even Nancy Pelosi should do this. She should acknowledge how wrong and hysterical she and her movement were. But it is all the more pressing for someone on the right because of the culture and because of the fact they should have known better. The DC culture is almost a perfect reverse weathervane. They knew that and temporarily forgot it.
So this stuff has nothing to do with loyalty to Trump or authoritarianism. It all is about what a proper person does when they realize they were incorrect. Leftists can't see it through this lens because they dont understand the right because they 1) Can't see how Jan 6 isn't what they thought initially; and/or 2) Dont understand what repentance is.
anti_dan
1yr ago
Anarcho tyranny is in full effect. Use a gun for a proper purpose, like defending yourself from a rioter, and you will end up in the clink. The rioter, not so much.
anti_dan
2yr ago
This story has made me revisit my college days and think on how close many kids are to lifetime worries if they aren't just total spineless cowards. We would host parties, from time to time, not ragers on the level of frats (but those obviously exist) and from time to time people who weren't invited, or were kinda shady friends of a friend of a friend would come. Then they would inevitably do some drug other than alcohol/weed and become a crazy person in need of restraint. Typically this never escalates when an average guy is confronted by my roommate (6'5'' pitcher), and if we added in that I was a wrestler, another roommate in BJJ before it was cool, they are easily dealt with. And then they go home.
But one time at one of our friend's place, some crack smoking person showed up and cold clocked a girl. Then he fought and fought and bit at least 3 people until roommate pitcher and I fully submission held him. He attempted to bite me at least 3 times over the 10 or so minutes before the cops picked him up. Could we have killed him? Well, yes, accidentally, as well. Or he could have George Floyded on us and had a dubious possibly drug induced death, possibly aggravated by being placed in a painful restraint for a long time. What to do? Just let people going around socking co-eds? At least the cops slipped me some of those ziptie cuffs as they carted him away...
anti_dan
11mo ago
I dont think its a shift at all. Its simply the left employing their usual tactic where when they do a thing its good, but if the right does a thing it is bad. Somebody probably can recall the exact vocab word but its slipping my mid right now
anti_dan
2yr ago
Well, I find the Clinton case to be particularly egregious because it was done with intent to evade oversight. There were perfectly good State Department servers that had at least decent security. Instead of using those, she set up a parallel system, without any meaningful security. Then dozens/hundreds of times she knowingly did nefarious things, because instead of simply emailing to her private server from State servers, she had aids, print, then scan documents so as to get them onto the private server without "any trace".
anti_dan
7mo ago
This seems like the old, tired, western leftist playbook by now. Russia is both feckless and a bogeyman simultaneously. They both subvert democracy, almost prophetically, every time some left wing party loses an election, but also will soon be beaten by NATO's wallet and the long arc of history.
anti_dan
2yr ago
Whatever patience I had with American "anti-establishment" right-wingers, it ended. I guess Hanania is the only one I keep reading/listening at this point.
Your evidence for making this wide sweeping conclusion is frog avatar anons? At least when someone on the right weakmans they cite a Harvard professor or some MSNBC host. Putin can be bad, but not caring about that much at all is perfectly fine. And dunking on Biden and co for having a Putin fetish is appropriate comedy.
anti_dan
2yr ago
This is an overly charitable take. The key to judging AP courses of this sort is to just skip to the recommended readings section. In this outline it starts on 70 with recommended textbooks. The first one listed, by Maulana Karenga clearly would be in violation of the FL statute if used. It is an openly race critical text that contains all forms of intersectional conspiracy theories. Its hard to imagine the majority of those textbooks (which are not mandatory, but in practice are more or less mandatory) are all that different. The other literature section contains a hodgepodge of works, I am not familiar with all of them, but at least 5 on the first page contain conspiratorial rants about whiteness, white supremacy, or some similar concept.
anti_dan
1yr ago
Alternatively...Biden could enforce the border. I know it sounds crazy, but at this point its a political win for him to work with Abbot.
anti_dan
2yr ago
So why don't people want to be called "cis"?
Because normal people object to being called something other than normal? Trans people having so much support in the media skews how truly abnormal almost everyone thinks they are. Its a bizarre scene whenever a trans person enters any not-LGBTQ (on and on) place and starts trying to fit in. So they often don't even try, they just start being bizzare and demanding respect. Some FTM people can moderately pass as really weak looking soyboys. But they seem much less even a part of the project. Those are mostly very depressed people who's depression continues so brazenly through transition they are lucky to ever see people as they can often not exit their abode. Contrasted with the never passing loud MTFs that so often represent the movement, and well, the abnormality is so stark that calling something that is not that anything but normal is simply a bizarre turn of vocabulary.
anti_dan
2yr ago
You do realize the effort and investment you've described so greatly exceeds what most people are capable of at 25, right? 6 weeks of vacation? On what planet does the average guy making $40k trying to work up to a position that makes 60k have that? Learning rudimentary foreign language skills? You're talking about something most people simply cannot do. Those with high enough IQs are probably better served just putting in OT at their current company and getting promoted. Use that money to snag a woman.
Teaching English in Korea/Japan is not unheard of, and it does sometimes let you snag a woman, but its mostly a thing only an option for higher status men anyways. Those countries don't let McDonalds workers have work visas.
anti_dan
21d ago
So it begs the question: what, exactly, is she advocating for? Quite frankly, I’m not sure. If I had to guess, I think she wants a secular, sexually conservative sororiarchy, where women watch out for their gender’s collective interests and stop each other from undercutting their bids. Either way, an interesting point of view.
This, I don't think is confusing at all. Shes advocating for feminism with only the benefits. It is a common occurrence. Its not outside the realm of fantasy. Imagine a world where men could just point at a woman and say "I want" and she has to have sex with him 7 days a week and bear him 15 children. That is the reality that many think used to exist. It never did, of course, which is why the counter to it is so deranged, but here we are.
anti_dan
3mo ago
The original movie is also like 50 minutes. Its simple by necessity. The film is iconic and carries the nostalgia factor for a remake because of its excellent animation for the time, and the excellent writing, voicing, and particularly singing/songwriting.
This film's biggest problem is it couldn't pull in any of that. A jealous aging woman is a tale as old as time. You don't need much plot development to get to that point if that is the motivation driving our villain. AND this is a villain-driven movie. She has the agency for most of the movie, and since her motivation is clear, the movie can proceed at pace. And that speedy pace ends with the downfall of a villain. So its simple tight plot wrapped up in singing and animation.
anti_dan
1yr ago
Not to burst your bubble, but the problem with Civil War actually originates with the source material. One might watch Civil War and ask why Tony Stark, aka Iron Man is on the side of the government despite being a tech entrepreneur who refused to share his suit tech with the government for years and Captain America, an FDR Democrat (aka the closest thing we have had to a dictator since George Washington) is on the side of the libertarians. The answer is the original writer wrote it that way for nonsensical reasons.
As a result, the whole story is nonsensical, and the movie reflects that because it is based on an idiotic comic book that shares its incoherence.
We have gotten to an odd place where people can nonchalantly talk about fighting police weekly and utilizing millions of dollars of public resources as "rights". This seems like yet another example of why the left and Democrats are so alienated from "the working class", as far as such a thing exists. Relaying a story like this to an Amazon delivery guy, a stay at home mom of 3+, a legal secretary, or a midlevel real estate agent and they'd very likely be seething with rage, thinking about how they just got a $3000 bill from a hospital because their kid had an asthma attack, which came just after finished paying off the bill for their other kid's birth.
Why didn't they just pretend to be homeless again? That is the question they ask. Why is the violent drug user getting better treatment from the state?
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