faceh
11mo ago
I think a lot of people overestimate how plugged in VPs are. The President has no responsibility, none at all, to keep the VP in the loop on anything. So we don't know if Kamala knew anything.
Well she should probably not be making statements supporting the president's and his mental acuity as though she's actually aware and in the loop, eh?
This is a bit ridiculous to argue if the premise is that Kamala didn't know what apparently, as we have recently learned, was evident to tons of people in Biden's orbit for months and months.
Like, she must have been intentionally ignoring it at that point.
Thirdly, had Kamala said something, you would as sure as sunshine be carping about what a disloyal, ambitious snake she was for doing so.
Nope. I don't go caring about how politicians treat each other in almost any context. The whole problem is that they're TOO loyal to each other and view their whole political class as an ingroup.
she's responsible and accountable to Biden, not the media.
Funny, I would have argued she's MORE responsible and accountable to her constituents. The ones she lied to. But as we've seen, the Dems don't actually need their voters input, so maybe you're right.
It is dishonest, sure. But such dishonesty is in some ways, necessary to keep organisations running.
So what, if any, punishment is proper for when the dishonesty actually had tangible consequences and is finally revealed to truth?
Or should we promote the dishonest person to a higher position?
I dunno, just seems like you'll get more dishonesty, which TO ME is a major detriment to having functional, accountable organizations.
faceh
11mo ago
I think what tends to happen is that lack of accountability makes it almost impossible for the system to correct course even as the need for such course-correction becomes absolutely obvious. There's no mechanism for filtering out incompetents, there's no feedback for the leaders to judge which decisions are actually improving matters, so we get the iron star catastrophe.
Covid kinda showed many of the seams. It really seems like the elites are running very low on effective tactics for reigning in discontent. I don't see how they'll effectively resolve the Israel-Palestine divide without alienating some large portion of the population. It seems unlikely that they'll achieve true 'victory' in Ukraine. They can't even solve the problem of drug overdose deaths in the heart of the capital, let alone the outer reaches of the empire.
You can only run away from consequences for so long. I'd wager most of them are gambling that they'll be dead before the chickens actually come home to roost.
faceh
11mo ago
If there was some aspect of his responsibilities that was neglected, you'd say so.
If I point out that there's literal millions of illegal border crossing happening on his watch what would you say to that?
Does "controlling the influx of foreign citizens entering the country" count as an "aspect of his responsibilities?"
Does allowing millions to enter and remain in the country without documentation count as 'neglect' of that aspect?
Then that's one. I could go on but I don't think that's the actual topic we're on.
I don't think you're adding much to my judgment of her character or fitness, just further deflections.
I stand by my position that I cannot choose Kamala due to demonstrated incompetence, dishonesty, and lack of actual tangible support for her candidacy because she skipped the normal process.
And you've provided the same weak excuses as everyone else. "SHE COULDN'T HAVE KNOWN!"
A competent leader would have. And would have said something. And wouldn't have lied.
So I will not reward the deceitful, incompetent leader with a promotion.
faceh
11mo ago
I have to assume its a LITTLE BIT because she let Trump get shot.
Politicians, ironically, ACTUALLY have some skin in the game when it comes to their protection details. They don't want potential bad actors to think they have a chance at successfully offing a politician because the USSS is incompetent. They definitely don't want such actors to be successful at offing politicians, they'd actually possibly suffer consequences in that case.
I mean, it runs counter to the narrative that Trump is a Charlatan/Fraud at every level, not JUST in that it makes him relatable.
Dems like to tout his numerous failed businesses (I would counter by simply pointing out that that only correlates with the many times he's tried new business ideas, where most don't try at all) or imply that he wouldn't be a billionaire but for luck and family connections.
This here demonstrates that no, he actually has a demonstrable set of skills in at least one area, he's not all talk. And if he's got skills in golf, it makes it ever so slightly more likely that he's actually skilled at other tasks that require finesse, strategy, and endurance.
For me, I'd say that I realized that Trump wasn't just buying and/or lending his name to Golf Courses to try and pretend at sophistication, he actually has a passion for that sport.
faceh
11mo ago
By the time you're resorting to pure brute force you've probably lost so much legitimacy that you're asking for revolution or coup.
Of course this doesn't mean it'll actually happen.
faceh
11mo ago
Uh, there's a point here where if the whole argument is that he's becoming senile, then his 'decision' to seek re-election is, in a deeper sense, NOT his responsibility, because SOMEBODY WHO NOTICED HIS DECLINE COULD HAVE STEPPED IN, noticing that his judgment is faulty.
There is in fact an existing precedent for removing an unfit president and of course the Democrats can choose to hold primaries and candidates can choose to run against Biden, so I think 100% is a tad high.
Sure... except golf isn't REALLY a 'rich mans game' anymore. Happy Gilmore is a bit outdated in that respect.
I happen to have already commented on this at length.
I am by no means rich and I grew up practicing golf along with a bunch of other sports. My solidly blue collar dad golfs all the time.
It's not like, say, Polo or high end motorsports where the barriers to entry are insurmountable.
Yes, rich people REALLY like golf. But to pretend that being good at golf makes someone less relatable to regular dudes is definitely not aware of actual golf culture.
faceh
11mo ago
It's not the job, specifically, of the VP to be his physician, or to advocate against him.
Should she advocate for him while knowing his condition? Is that her job?
Getting kinda amused by the deflections that ignore that she was not neutral or silent during this process. She doesn't get to dodge judgment for statements she actually made.
Just how, precisely, do you find it acceptable to be lied to directly, in a way that REALLY matters, and then decide to PROMOTE the person who lied to you?
HOW?
The female divergence is interesting, because from a somewhat objective perspective almost every single policy that has been passed on the state and federal level for almost 100 years has been explicitly designed to benefit them directly or indirectly. There's certainly been close to ZERO that would advantage men over women. Just a random smattering: Marital rape exceptions have been repealed across the board, Title IX has ensured Womens' sports survive, the ACA requires birth control be covered in full by insurance even for those who can't give birth, there's special accommodations for females in military service, and there's virtually no restrictions on women's sexual behavior on either a legal or social level. Indeed, regardless of what 'mistakes' a woman makes in this area, there's probably a program designed to alleviate the consequences at almost no cost to herself.
But there's always some other new issue that is now causing them horrible discomfort that must be addressed immediately, at all costs.
Seems like there are a few incontrovertible facts on the ground:
-
Women have, year over year, decade after decade, been getting LESS HAPPY since about 1970, despite receiving virtually every political benefit possible, as described above.
-
The percentage of females taking psychiatric drugs for diagnosed disorders has massively increased.
-
Females, or specifically unmarried ones, have been swinging further and further left by any reasonable measure.
Which is to say, they want MORE political interference on behalf of disadvantaged minorities, even when they themselves are quite literally the most advantaged group in the entire world.
Feel free to controvert any of said facts if you have reliable information to the contrary!
My basic thought on this is that we now have a huge sub-population of perpetually dissatisfied voters, who are particularly sensitive to fear-inducing stimuli, and are constantly under the influence of some kind of mind-altering substance. Who are also constantly, incessantly, loudly pushing for more of the sorts of policies that haven't led them to happiness and life satisfaction in the past. Nothing will appease them, granting political rights hasn't helped, medication hasn't helped, control of an increasingly large share of the economic pie hasn't helped. Give a woman billions of unearned dollars, she'll still go all in for Leftism!
(On a side note, its interesting that the single easiest path for a female to become a billionaire is... to divorce a billionaire. Actually rather amazing that the law of this country enables someone to claim billions of dollars on the basis that they're not satisfied with their marriage. And if a billionaire can't keep his woman satisfied, what hope do the rest of us have?)
While we simultaneously have an entire media edifice/egregore screaming in their ear at all hours that they have to be afraid of virtually everything in their environment, including the environment itself, and the only path to safety/protection, absolution for sins, or social acceptance is to fall in line behind [BLUE TRIBE CANDIDATE], and join the mob that is howling at the rest of the population demanding action on whatever the issue du jour is.
So it makes sense to me that there is some level of intentionality behind these developments, because it allows the powers that be to have a reliable voting bloc that can be pushed towards or away from any given policy goal simply by adjusting the messaging sent out to this group so as to scare them into supporting whatever said powers need to do at that given point in time. If TPTB want them to be afraid of taking an 'untested' vaccine, they can pull that string. If they want them to be afraid of NOT getting the vaccine, they can swap messages. Which is precisely what we saw.
And additionally, to the extent males form a block of uniform voters at all, it is in the interest of the Cathedral/the Machine to keep them divided and demotivated from participating in the political process, lest they advocate for policies on the basis of their expected outcomes or cost/benefit analysis or something.
Something something 'there's a lot of ruin in a nation.'
Seems like the bet is that they can stave off a sharp collapse for a while and even if there is one as long as they control the narrative then most men won't be inspired to suddenly turn to violence to either attack the existing order or to defend a competing one.
It is really hard to imagine a group of capable young men organizing into something resembling a warband without being infiltrated by six different federal agencies, vilified to hell and back by every media company, and possibly debanked and deplatformed as well.
Which is just to say, they'd probably have to push things REALLLLLLLLY far before this became a real concern. Which is not me saying that it won't get there.
faceh
11mo ago
I uh, think he had more to his comment there that you failed to respond to.
For my part, casual fun sex is probably the optimal outcome/lifestyle for like <10% of males, who are psychologically inclined against commitment and towards Hedonism, but outside of the literal rockstars who engage in it, merely being a manwhore doesn't make you 'cool' to the larger population.
Liberal women steer clear of Trump supporters not because they worry "he won't be able to effectively prioritize my emotional needs in the relationship" but because they worry that the cops are going to knock on their door if they go the doctor after a miscarriage.
This is an interesting inversion of the usual complaint that Males try to avoid SJWs because they worry that the cops are going to knock on their door if their partner goes to the doctor and claims they've been physically abused.
Which happens more often than the scenario you're describing.
Is one fear rational and the other irrational? If so, which is which?
Hmmmmm.
faceh
11mo ago
Interesting observation there.
You get a cohort of males raised without discipline from father figures, and eventually realizing that the only thing restraining their bad behavior is physical force, and maybe noticing that there's a shortage of people who are capable of using physical force to stop them.
If these men are likewise convinced that their lives will not improve by following along with the roles society suggests, then yeah, what else COULD happen?
faceh
11mo ago
Yeah, that's perhaps my take on it.
We're in prime 'Black Swan' territory where the interaction of several different crises at once can lead to sharp and SUDDEN downturns from angles we weren't looking at directly.
My position is that Covid sufficed to pull a LOT of slack out of the system. Putin started strumming on the taut strings. China (or any number of other actors) might just go ahead and take a wire cutter to the strained order and let things fall where they may.
faceh
11mo ago
I really do not think that is the case.
For example, is a man who constantly goes to strip clubs to pick up strippers for sex, or hires escorts on a weekly basis... do people consider this guy 'cool' for all the sex he has (and pays for?).
Is the guy who hangs around college campuses to hit on younger girls and seduces a new girl every month or hits up frat parties to bring drunk girls home 'cool?'
Is the guy who trolls the apps and hits on every single unattractive female he can find, and manages to bag one every so often, 'cool?'
I think the 'coolness' is ALMOST ENTIRELY derived from the status of the person engaging in the casual sex. A rock star, a celebrity athlete, maybe the guy who fits the 'bad boy' or 'outlaw' model to a T is 'cool.'
The mere knowledge that a guy engages in lots of casual sex isn't going to raise his social status much, but a guy with a lot of social status will have an easier time getting casual sex, and the fact that he gets so much casual sex is considered a perk of being so cool.
I.e. casual sex doesn't grant men status, men acquiring status grants them casual sex.
Also I think its a reversal of cause and effect.
Guys who are 'cool' just have an easier time getting casual sex.
So casual sex is a perk of being cool.
So yes there's some association with coolness and casual sex, but I can think of a number of scenarios where guys who get regular casual sex are in fact deemed 'pathetic' by society.
Is a guy that goes to Thailand on a regular basis specifically to engage in sex tourism 'cool?' I can't think of a single case of such.
faceh
11mo ago
These crimes indicate something much more severe
There's an extent to which I agree with this general point, but I also assume that the law was designed so the punishment fits with the alleged severity of the offense, so that really means your issue is with the law itself being too lenient?
It’s fair to note a pedophile long after the fact in a way that noting a tax cheat isn’t.
Hmmm. I think it is wise to keep your kids away from him as a general rule, and we should assume a certain propensity for bad behavior and not really give him the benefit of the doubt...
But it is not clear that this should impact his ability to compete in a sport he's actually very good at if he's maintained good behavior since.
faceh
11mo ago
Same thing, though. His punishment was carried out. Presumably his country deemed that punishment sufficient for the nature of his crimes.
What crimes are so heinous as to disqualify someone from 'representing his country,' assuming they're otherwise talented enough to hack it?
Do we agree that Michael Phelps' kerfuffle over Marijuana use doesn't invalidate his gold medal wins, nor should he be prevented from competing?
So light drug use is 'acceptable.'
I'll grant murder is beyond the pale.
I think I'd be fine with a person with a single DUI on their record representing the U.S. I'd be okay with someone convicted of 'simple' assault and battery too, assuming they had history of good behavior since then.
Sexual Assault is beyond simple assault, but I think I can be okay with someone convicted of sexual assault representing the country if it is 10 years after the fact.
Since the OP says the crime was committed
with no additional elements of coercion
I guess I'm just left wondering how much harsher to judge when the victim is 12.
My own thoughts on the crime of rape are nuanced, because the law treats it very differently from most other crimes, and nowadays doesn't even need to prove the perp's intent to stick.
On the one hand raping a child should be punished heavily. On the other I definitely don't see the benefit of continuing to drop sanctions on the perp once their sentence is done. I'd certainly argue that every consecutive year of demonstrably good behavior is grounds for easing up on him.
"Having sex with a child forever stains your reputation such that you can never be given any position of esteem or honor ever again"
is a pretty simple rule and certainly isn't the worst way to govern these things, but preventing someone with actual skills from using those skills to their fullest extent also creates economic deadweight loss. Maybe the answer is to legally enslave him and FORCE him to play Volleyball for the country, but he has to look like he's really unhappy about it, maybe they send someone out there to hit him with electrical shocks between rounds. But oh, fielding slave athletes is also a bad look for your country.
Hmm.
I don't want to seem flippant about it, but picking an athlete to represent my country has so little effect on my daily life, or anyone's, that I simply can't find it hugely controversial that they've got some nasty history. Like I said, keep him away from kids, and that's the sum total of my concern for the situation. Most Olympians ain't kids.
I hold people who are put in positions where they exercise actual authority over others (Politicians, CEOs, and the like) or in direct positions of trust to a much higher standard in this regard.
faceh
11mo ago
Yeah, I'm reluctant to even classify this as 'misinformation' any more than, say, The Daily Show airing a creatively edited interview with a politician.
Either you can detect the joke from the context, or you are so susceptible to being misled that no amount of disclaimers would help. Probably.
faceh
11mo ago
And that is their right. I tend to fall more on the American normie side of "maybe people who fuck 12 year-olds don't need to be around".
Yes that's the easy rule. I somehow feel like nobody is quite prepared to apply it to every single imagineable case, however.
Plenty of people are talented. Kevin Spacey has literally been found innocent in multiple trials and will still likely not be allowed to climb back to anything like his peak status. Ryan Garcia is currently in the doghouse. Poor Kyrie Irving was suspended for moronic conspiracy theories of the sort you hear yelled in the subway, no threat to anyone. He wasn't even allowed to pay jizya at first because he was not sufficiently deferential in his apologies.
Yes so you see my point.
If the rule is "having sex with a 12 year old is an instant social death sentence, and maybe a literal death sentence" then there's some incentive to use this claim as a bludgeon and create false allegations.
I don't know if there's a better equilibrium achievable, but I'd perhaps like to search for it.
Seems to me like an attempt to paper over a major hole in their ideological worldview.
I've spoken on the topic before, martial arts, combat sports, and such similar endeavors based on physical prowess in an actual fight for 'survival' against another human remain mostly untouched by the forces of 'woke' and are still a place where masculinity is allowed to exist without suborning itself to female-centric norms of behavior or lefty egalitarianism.
Its a cultural arena where any and all illusions about socially constructed gender norms smack into a wall of sheer pragmatism. Quoth myself: "end of the day, there is simply no amount of social maneuvering that will make up for the strength differential between men and women, and you can't 'fake' martial arts skills without willing participants, which makes entryism nigh-impossible."
A biological male who goes through male puberty has an insurmountable advantage over any person whatsoever who hasn't gone through male puberty. Unironically, If I were forced to bet on a no-holds barred brawl between a barely-trained 70 year old male and a heavily trained mid-twenties female in the same weight class, I am picking gramps for the win. Cardio will 100% be a factor here, but also, old man strength is REAL. (Oh I'm prepared to lose my money, but absent actual medical problems a 70 year old is not as fragile as you think.) I wonder why such a matchup hasn't been done before. Hmmmm.
But biology also has a tendency to be messy and perhaps defies categorization on the margins, so we can have women who produce a lot of testosterone and maybe some weird genetic quirks that trigger the same disgust reaction as a male whalloping on a female even though, technically, if we squint, its still women fighting women. But closer to the center of the respective bell curves for men and women there are no surprises to be found.
The lefties who want to claim the only reason anyone objects to Imane Khelif being in the women's division is wanton transphobia are depending on some very, very rare and unique circumstances to justify the situation that has come about. If we apply the left's logic, literally any person who was "assigned male at birth" who transitions at any age should be eligible to compete in the women's division. That's how they treat every other sport. So if we see some jacked, bearded wrestler sweep a women's karate tournament what exactly are we supposed say that ISN'T transphobic?
But the reason I reject the idea that it is 'fine' to let a trans woman compete in a fighting sport against cis women is mostly what I alluded to up above. Biology is messy but also merciless. Just as one might be repulsed by the image of a muscular male cracking a young lady's skull, the image of a strapping young buck trading blows with a senior citizen thrice his age also tends to also generate pity for the older guy and disdain for the younger who is showing blatant disrespect for his elder and risks hurting, maybe killing someone who is much less able to recover from the damage.
BUT WAIT, age is just a social construct. A 'spectrum,' one might even say! There is no exact set of physical traits that makes someone "sixty years old" other than the date on which they exited their mothers womb! How can you assert that a 25-year-old is going to have inherent advantages in a fight over a 65-year-old? Why should these arbitrary categories justify rules that seek to protect the latter from the former? Somebody can identify as a different age than the one presented by their body, that much is true!
Well, because our current scientific understanding of how aging works... and common sense from what we can observe with our own eyes, tells us that even if we can't precisely predict how 10, 20, 30 years of time passing will impact a human body, we can be certain that the general trend will be that person will become slower, weaker, more prone to injury, and thus overall at much greater risk than the equivalent person who is 20 years younger.
So uh, when our current scientific understanding of how sexual development works... and common sense from what we can observe with our own eyes, tell us that even if we can't precisely predict how 300 ng/dL of added testosterone will impact a human body, we are still going to be certain that the person without that testosterone will be slower, weaker, more prone to injury, and overall at much greater risk than the 'equivalent' person who has 200 times their testosterone levels.
Yes, there's a plethora of other factors and the causal arrow can point in multiple directions, remember I'm granting that biology is messy.
Leaving aside whether women should be competing in combat sports at all, if they're going to have their own league or division, the rules should be focused on mitigating the risks to the competitors (and maximizing 'fairness,' I guess) and thus shouldn't be thwarted by the aforementioned weird edge cases, and definitely not thwarted by someone who can convince the organizers that they REALLY REALLY believe they're a female.
And I would say precisely the same about age divisions. A 30-year-old could in theory have the mind of a 60-year-old, but lets not force the actual 60-year-old into the ring with them because we want to accommodate the younger guy's beliefs... Again leaving aside whether 60-year-olds should be competing at all.
Lefties don't (currently) see the age spectrum as an issue worth fighting over, but dohoho they certainly will take any and every opportunity presented to fight over the gender identity spectrum. Especially when they're desperate to make inroads into the combat sports world which, as I stated elsewhere, is extremely resistant to entryism. This helps them slap a facade over the "males and females are fundamentally physically different in non-trivial ways" hole by arguing "transphobes can't even tell the difference between a trans woman and a woman who is merely huge physical outlier."
Anyhow. Maybe we revisit this topic after the Jake Paul/Mike Tyson fight
faceh
11mo ago
I have utter respect for BJJ as a discipline, and its one of the few areas where a female with technique can win under the rules of the sport against a male, since many submissions use leverage rather than strength. And you can get choked out at any size.
Under the rules of BJJ.
I'm not certain a female fighter can get a male to go to the ground, where the techniques work best, if he doesn't want to go down there. She certainly risks catching a devastating strike or getting body slammed in the process.
Just yesterday I was reading twitter conversations spurred on by the Olympic shooting event memes and getting people confidently stating that the reason these sports (and similar competitions) were segregated was men were scared of losing to women and women were sick of being harassed by men. Community notes swoops in to point out that the decision to segregate happened in 1991 and the female winning was 1992, so something else was probably afoot.
THIS one had 24k likes. And sure maybe there's some element of that but you can directly point out that in most cases women are very much allowed to compete against men if they want. But they choose not to and usually they don't place well when they do.
Like sure, on some culture war issues a difference of opinion can be sustained because the facts on the ground are ambiguous. But thousands of people sustaining a false outlook on the world that could be refuted by simply looking at the reliable records is some serious epistemic collapse.
I wonder if there are 'strength truthers' out there who believe that female powerlifters could absolutely catch men's records if they started training as intensely as possible as early as possible and weren't being harassed out of the gym by the 'bro culture' or whatever. Actually, now that I've said it, I'm now certain there's people out there who believe that.
I've been tapping the sign so vigorously lately that its starting to hurt my finger.
Literally I just want accountability from those who are nominally in charge of various important functions.
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