arearea
3mo ago
It's not surprising and I understand that - the same thing's been talked about here for red-leaning professors. But to me, it seems that the last bulwark against total, permanent loss of presence in a system is when people give up in the face of the hostile work environment. Which I guess I can't blame them for, but it seems like it was otherwise not necessarily beyond salvaging until after then. Probably irrelevant since not many are going to take one on the chin year after year so that things maybe get better in future generations.
Police have been doing a lot of organized demonstration of their disapproval, though. By staying in the force and simply refusing to do their jobs, in a bid to prove how much they actually mattered. It's been hard to ignore, not that their governments haven't tried.
If white people exile themselves from the military, the woke mindset, I think, will suddenly sympathize with it more. They're going to start wanting to pay soldiers more and it's going to become our most dearly beloved institution instead of an evil tool of oppression. All leaving does is surrender yet another avenue of control to that camp. Even if there's already a relative top-heavy disparity in power, it would only get worse. If there's ever to be a reversal, it would happen a lot quicker if the entire ground level composition of the military wasn't comprised of woke-preferred individuals. Just like with colleges- that's how you set yourself up to lose an institution for more than just the current day, but for generations.
The military is one of the conservatives' last bases of power, even if their opponents pull the strings, it still has a high degree of conservative symbolic meaning and representation in the lower ranks in particular. Willingly ceding that leaves them with nothing but a bunch of alienated and isolated white dudes with no sense of unity. Seems a lot easier to maneuver around. What's left, farming?
I've always considered this issue to be one of white people shooting themselves in the foot. I have so many friends, including some ex-military, who champion this as proof that the based white men go their own way. And it's just like the conservative exodus from academia. Or liberals discouraging each other from being cops? It's just- no, you fools. What do you think you're accomplishing by removing yourselves from a seat of power? You're not owning anyone, you're just marginalizing yourselves, and ceding the entire institution to your rivals. It's not a gain.
But I don't think it's the main issue. Black overrepresentation in the military has generally been due to it being a good opportunity for people at the bottom, and less interesting to anyone above. The first assumption shouldn't be that white people necessarily feel spited by America. It should be considered that it's not an economically attractive option to anyone who can make it in the private sector. People often ask why people don't just leave the hood, and the military is actually a good path to anyone who actually wants to do that quickly.
Also, to test your theory, you should really consider the political persuasion of young white people. Do you think the average white 19 year old zoomer isn't joining because he feels scorned for being white? For a white person to feel that way would be indicative of a level of conservatism I think is relatively low in that age demographic. Instead, I'd posit that these people are more leftist-inclined, and think that to serve America is to serve a country that is fundamentally white supremacist, the exact opposite problem- not to mention the military itself being a tool of colonialism etc, but the point is, their racial perspective would go the opposite way.
Even if they don't fully embrace these leftist ideals, they have enough sympathy to fuel an, "I wouldn't want to get killed for that" mentality, with many people's popular perception of what soldiers do still rooted in WWII-era meat grinder situations.
Kyle should have just let his attackers beat him as much as they wanted and hope they had the mercy not to kill him, rather than fighting back.
That's not even close to what he said, he said Rittenhouse's life would have been better if he had not killed anyone, which was controllable on more bases than not pulling the trigger, i.e., presumably, not willingly walking into a riot by himself (which itself was a massive self-endangerment). There's a world where you can frame that as "Letting communities be besieged by rioters" or something, (although he evidently would have preferred the government step in), but he said absolutely nothing remotely resembling "you should let people beat you and hope they have the heart to be gentle."
arearea
4mo ago
It seems we only know how to hand our allies the rope with which to hang us, under the pretense of allowing us to see from a higher vantage point. See also: Pakistan with Osama. Perhaps we do gain from these relationships in some way, but it would seem we are getting the worse end of the bargain, and the relationships will end unfavorably to us in all cases.
arearea
4mo ago
As seen in Vietnam, when prominent "Anti-war" voices could often be seen demonizing US soldiers while happily posing with North Vietnamese artillery and praising the virtue of the Viet Cong. They didn't want the war to end so much as they wanted their side to lose (so they could then proclaim cultural victory).
Differences though there may be, I think there's something to be said of the fact that, for whatever reason, liberals seem to hold that the person saying "liberals get the bullet too"/"Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds" is their dear friend, and they seem quick to circle the wagons to defend radical leftists who hate their guts.
Liberals seem to be under the impression that the radical leftist is a strawman, that these people are just the same as them, save for maybe being a bit more energized, and that they are having their words distorted. This phenomenon is probably why conservatives say they're the same people. Liberals are all too eager to see anyone anti-right as an ideological ally. See: sanewashing, as with "defund the police." "These fellows seem to agree with me, being upstanding anti-rightists. Surely their words and movement are being unfairly mischaracterized." clueless.png
From what I see, liberals don't think communists are fascists, they either think they're fellow liberals, or flat out don't believe they exist, that they're just an exaggeration used to malign regular old liberals. (Which, to be fair, does happen, and might be their primary exposure to these radical ideas.)
arearea
4mo ago
Almost everyone knows that black people are faster sprinters, that Kenyans win marathons, etc...
I think you'd be surprised how many people simply wouldn't even get that far. I've been told by a lot of people that it simply has to do with the elevations of those runners' countries of origins or something. That's all it takes to wave it away, and if that fails, they can always just suss out that you're trying to prove a broader wrongthink narrative, AKA "arguing in bad faith."
Many people won't even believe that male and female humans have different physical performance in sports for any reason but different socialization. Whether they were thinking backwards is an irrelevant question now, because the firmware is now complete and they just have trouble accepting genetic differences being real in general.
arearea
4mo ago
ACLU on twitter:
We don’t support the NRA's mission or its viewpoints on gun rights, and we don’t agree with their goals, strategies, or tactics.
Ignoring how lowly they regard the second amendment at this point, I think it's bizarre the way they cast shade on their client like this. Is... is that something they usually do? The fight for common rights seems awfully bitter to them. It gives the impression that they are a wholeheartedly partisan organization that is only taking up this fight in a ploy to maintain an image of impartiality. Why else would the blue tribe shibboleth be necessary?
arearea
6mo ago
Funny, but I think you'll find Israel to have no shortage of mainstream criticism on the basis of its status as an apartheid settler-colonialist etc state. I do not think it is as easy to find such things critical of efforts to constitutionally enshrine the veneration of "designated oppressed minority groups" like the aboriginals.
Even the anti-voice arguments did not speak in anywhere near the harshness that Israel is often regarded with. Instead, they focused on how "This won't even help the aboriginals!" instead of it being a concerted effort to officially develop a new ethnostate policy.
Wow, that's a remarkable quote. It's incredible that they can openly state they want nothing less than ethno-supremacy while mainstream media sources are calling so many people racist for not being one-sided enough in their favor. A banal and obvious observation I know, but you usually don't hear admission of it that plainly, and that puts into perspective how incredible it is that such a narrative is safely forwarded by people who are treated like they have a monopoly on the concept of racial justice in the mainstream discourse.
arearea
6mo ago
Similar to how WWII bombing campaigns that caused far more destruction inspire less ire than a competition to decapitate 100 Chinese. (Including bombings by the same country).
arearea
6mo ago
That seems shocking to me. That was the kind of scene I did not think people came back from.
arearea
6mo ago
I have not seen any rapes captured on video, but I did see a young woman's body piled upon a bunch of corpses in the back of a pickup being spat upon and laughed at by multiple individuals in a parade. That much is clear really happened, and I believe this to be the incident most are describing. Whether she was raped is unclear from my perspective but not really hard to imagine. Nonetheless they paraded her body around with no exaggeration.
Not the individual you replied to but making things illegal and successfully restricting them neuters what people have access to, even if more people decide to pursue that thing.. Californians can own guns, but some of their options end up being rather pitiful.
Even if a gun law encourages more people to buy guns- the guns they can buy are suddenly rendered more impotent. As an extreme example, if everyone were given a musket a day before guns became impossible to buy legally from then on, more people would have guns, but people's ability to wage war would be hampered quite severely.
arearea
8mo ago
Bush chose to signal his loyalty to the powers that be over the impotent right wing. Given his potential status as a pariah, it was probably a wise, and entirely self-serving, action.
arearea
8mo ago
To offer a contrary opinion. We have seen what a Russian war of annihilation looks like in Chechnya. They leveled cities. It looked apocalyptic. Russia's most heavy-handed tactics in Ukraine hardly resemble this. I would assume, then, that they want the country and its people largely intact.
Of course all blame for this still lays on the initiator of the war
This is true, in sort of a cosmic sense, but leaving it at that would mean Ukraine would not be beholden to any standard of conduct, which belies the entire point of having rules of war. Everyone thinks they're unquestionably in the right, or they wouldn't be going so far as to kill each other, so putting unilateral blame on those we deem responsible defeats the purpose. Jus ad bellum and jus in bello are distinct concepts for a reason.
People point to the destruction of apartments and such as atrocities. I see it as evidence of heavy-handedness, but it is not as straightforward an atrocity as the narrative holds. Many people are shocked and appalled that Russia would "attack residential areas." But battlefields don't really discriminate, and residential areas are not sacrosanct, they are incidental. Now, Ukraine sits in a disadvantaged but motivated position. Attacks on their own people are not going to be an unacceptable outcome to be avoided at all costs. The worst case scenario still puts Russia in an unambiguously bad light, so they have plenty incentive to fight from such positions and not to evacuate people- as you say, terror-bombing is often counter-productive. Which is because when you start killing innocent people in their backyards, your action galvanizes resistance. It isn't exactly a losing PR move for Ukraine.
This isn't really to say that Ukraine is responsible for Russia killing people. But there is an ugly side to all war, even the underdog fighting for their homeland, which usually entails using underhanded tactics like that, as seen in Palestine and Iraq as well. Russia is put in an impossible situation when fighting in areas full of civilians, even if they were angels. And they're not; they have far fewer reservations against civilian casualties than the US, despite cries of genocide being aimed at the latter for the last couple decades. But Russia, callous as they may be, is still doing things for a pragmatic reason, not because they are evil bloodthirsty orcs or what have you. The calculus is more like, "if there is an apartment that looks like a good fighting position overlooking your approach, why not blow it up?" And thus, an area containing becomes directly targeted. I have no doubt that these are the kinds of decisions that are so often characterized as deliberate attacks on civilians. And you'll find these sorts of judgment calls are not harshly condemned in any rules of war Russia has ever agreed to, because no soldiers have a responsibility to preserve what they deem to be credible potential threat to their lives.
I'm open to messages to the contrary, since I really do not sympathize much with Russia despite what I've said, but in my experience, any serious analysis of this issue tends to get drowned out by nationalistic rhetoric.
arearea
8mo ago
I had idly wondered this to myself for a time. Just goes to show how intellectually bankrupt it is to fluff up a particular inflection of a word as a grievous sin.
arearea
8mo ago
I assume you're referring to how SA, the notorious den of trolls that made the internet tremble in fear became a moralizing community dedicated to social justice?
arearea
9mo ago
What's especially interesting is that I have seen quite a few young progressive online thinkers, on breadtube for instance, turned out to have established their internet footprint far earlier than you'd expect, on places like Something Awful. Naturally, they don't extend the same courtesy to others they seem to be worthy of in regards to ignoring past "misdeeds."
arearea
9mo ago
The equally important IMO but more subtle way is 2, that she doesn't have a chip on her shoulder about it, i.e. constantly (mis)interpreting every minor mistake or social faux-paus as somebody being racist against her, every bureaucratic snafu as the system being systematically racist, being automatically more trusting of any other black person she encounters no matter what their official position is, etc.
There is actually a display of this where the form of Abraham Lincoln (the show could be silly at times) refers to her as a "negress" and he immediately apologizes, at which point she just brushes it aside instead of making an impassioned stand against his awful bigotry, saying "in our century, we've learned not to fear words." A fine goal which has utterly fallen out of favor.
arearea
9mo ago
It was not simply for defending populated areas. It was for fighting from within them. Doing this legitimized Russia in bombing those areas, because it stops being a war crime to attack civilian-occupied areas unprovoked when you have credible reason to believe in potential enemy presence there (i.e. dozens of social media videos and reports of Ukrainians fighting from within those areas).
Just so you know, your link of "this meme" is broken. Any use of a media reddit link with an old.reddit url will redirect you to the "nice hat" page. (Fixed by simply removing the "old." part
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