iprayiam3
1d ago
Anyone else dream of colonizing Mars? In The WHIMS of Mars, anonymous shitposter John Carter outlines what it might look like. ... [snip]...
Does this' anonymous shitposter John Carter' fella, also go by Unshacked sometimes?
Personally I like the pardon power and am glad it exists.
The biggest issue is Biden's blatent lying about it to collect on the facade of justice when expedient and avoid the consequences when not. This is what tears at the credibility the most, not the pardon in itself.
This is probably a much better outcome than the alternative. The example of other nations shows thay prosecuting presidents and their families is much likelier to lead to coups and crises than genuine justice and law.
Moderation in all things. You need a stalemate here, which has been perilously broken on both sides by the left now inside of a year. Yes, escalation in prosecuting the opposition's family leads to bad outcomes. But so does flagrantly demonstrating that overt familial corruption and enrichment are given a blank cheque, as long as one obtains / stays in power. The family in power gets to break laws sell influence and avoid prosecution as a perk, is a bad overt admission.
By both prosecuting Trump on nonsensical charges & by pardoning Hunter who was overtly criminal and corrupt after repeatedly stating letting it play out was the justice-based approach, the left has broken both sides of what should be a schelling point of stability.
iprayiam3
1d ago
Good for him. This was the virtuous thing to do.
By the treatment of Hunter's own daughter, this is not some demonstration of higher code to one's family. I understand you want to make Nietchian strong-man arguments, but exercising one's power to meet their ideosyncratic preferences is not virtue, it's tautology of will to power, even when your preference is for your family to prosper. Loyalty to smallest possible tribe, at thee xpense of other duties to one's station, natuion, and culture. is not the ur-virtue by almost any standard. It's just mob behavior. It's the definition of corruption.
I am supposed to appauld someone for taking advantage of power to enrich their personal loyalties as virtue?
Finally, Biden is a professed Catholic, and there's nothing in Catholic morality that upholds loyalty to flesh as virtuous (quite the opposite, tfh). If we want to appaud Biden's virtue, he should start by renouncing the all the other duities and affiliations that this virtue undermines. Or is it also virtuous to exercise raw familial enrichment through deception and expressions of false standards of morality?
Would TheMotte really be here condemning Trump if he pardoned Don Jr. in a tax fraud case? Be honest now.
I would, of course. Corruption and personal loyalty over loyalty to either the American people, or the principles he was elected on are among the biggest criticisms of Trump. Why would I bury my head if Trump further legitimized those criticisms?
iprayiam3
5d ago
This is a long shot. It it. Old be a little bit of a test (likely unconscious) of commitment / leadership / low expectations.
Have you told her confidently and not whiney that you want to make it work. Or even asked her to stay (explicitly for the relationship)
If you really think she could be the person you end up with, at least give it that shot. ‘Hey, I really like what we have. I want to give this a real shot. Let’s make this work.’
Cut out the casual stuff either way. It’s all in or all out dude. Everything else is a waste of time. And if she’s willing to be a time waster and your not willing to be a leader, it’s bad for both of you
iprayiam3
9d ago
No see this is the issue. If conservatives have been ‘pearl clutching’ about sexual morality for this long maybe it’s not performative… and further why are you surprised?
Your entire reaction (if not performative) thus rests on the conclusion that conservatives don’t earnestly find anything wrong with soliciting teenage prostitutes.
If you don’t find anything wrong with it, again- ok. But to assume anyone who does is pearl clutching is an extremely warped worldview
iprayiam3
10d ago
I get that mores change and republicans have abandoned even the pretense of moral majority, but like 17 year old prostitution is not suprisingly scandalous. It’s not some made up woke shit. It’s what the whole Epstein island implication was… yesterday.
If one personally doesn’t find this scandalous, ok. But the performative surprise that others might is disingenuous
iprayiam3
19d ago
Tulsi is not particularly MAGA. Her warm reception is mostly just about owning the libs or more charitably the tendency of conservatives to welcome agreement wherever it’s found. It’s the same way Bill Maher is praised by the right whenever he’s slightly critical of the far left.
Meanwhile Tulsi is not particularly establishment GOP. She’s a non woke democrat.
A tulsi presidential bid from the left would mean the left was moderating on progressivism. From the right it just means the right continues to move left.
iprayiam3
27d ago
Maybe wokism gets worse. It's definately a possibility. But I am not convinced. The woke policies under Biden never really moderated. They just leaned on the messaging less hard. I don't see any reason to believe they wouldn't have ramped right back up once they secured a victory. Just like Biden running on a 'moderate' veneer.
At the end of the day, Kamala was the final boss of woke ideology - an unaccomplished diversity hire who rose to the the highest level possible, unelected, annointed all through intersectionality, surrounded by true believers. Her winning would have been a confirmation of everything woke, not a repudiation.
iprayiam3
28d ago
iprayiam3
28d ago
He has somewhat Trumpish views, especially on vaxines and covid.
Trump is quite pro-vaccine. He still touts Operation Warpspeed.
iprayiam3
28d ago
Absolutely. It’s the safest endorsement ever made. He put absolutely nothing on the line with this one
iprayiam3
1mo ago
Is that the real argument, that trump will bring ethnic purges? And is this just extrapolated out of his border views?
iprayiam3
1mo ago
Is Trump supposed to be antisemitic? Who's making that claim and based on what?
iprayiam3
1mo ago
I don't want to be uncharitable, and I admit I didn't look hard, but superficially, yes that is the only justification for the comparison I saw. It felt very "Hitler also ate toast!" to me.
iprayiam3
1mo ago
But as I said in my other comment, I (perhaps wrongly) don't think of Hitler's defining characteristic as having been a fascist dictator, but has having been a fascist dictator who started WWII and the Holocaust. If the Hitler comparison is just a fascist dictator claim with only a ... following it, I think that's disingenuous.
I'm not defending fascism. But if the argument isn't that he'll use fascism to commit specific atrocities comparable to Hitler's, but only that fascism is the atrocious end in itself, the specific Hitler comparison feels weak to me. There have been other fascists and dictators in history too.
iprayiam3
1mo ago
OK that's all very fair. I guess what confuses me (or I understand now) is that Hitler accusation mostly just equals fascist accusation?
Like it seems to me, as a historically ignorant normie, that there have been lot's of fascists and dictators in history and active in the world today. When I think Hitler, sure, it's bad that he was a dictator, but his two biggest sins seem to be WWII and the Holocaust. A lot of what's notably bad about him being a fascist dictator vs. one of lot's of dictators in history is his usage of his fascist dictatation to commit those two sins.
So is the implication that Trump is Hitler tied to the idea that he will do things like the Holocaust and WWII, or just object level being a fascist dictator and Hitler was one also. Because I feel like the former is disingenuous.
So much of the rhetoric right now is that Trump's rally in MSG was or was like a Nazi rally. Only looking superficially at social media, I am not seeing a thesis or high level argument except plain assertion and vague comparison that the Nazi's also held rallies. I don't think it's controversial to say that part of the recent messaging is a renewed "Trump is a Nazi" message, partly sparked by a controversal claim that Trump supposedly said he wanted generals like Hitler had or that he admired them or something.
Campaign rhetoric? sure. But clearly some people really believe Trump is a Nazi? Can somebody help me understand the claim? Not necessarily the veracity, but what the substantative argument is. I am not a Trump fan, nor do I buy into the hype around him, so I'm not here to defend him. Neither am I particularly a student of history. My understanding of WWII is general. I am on the fence about voting Trump. Yet, as a non-TDS sufferer, I really do not understand what the Trump is a Nazi claim is trying to convince me of. Can anyone lay out the argument and why Trump is Hitler sufficiently captures a real claim about the dangers of his presidency. (Again not looking for veracity, I'm trying to understand what the claim means.)
I will start by shooting some low hanging fruit of my low-information confusion.
- Trump is clearly not a 'literal' member of the Nazi party.
- It does not seem like Trump wants to invade or conquer European neighbors.
- Trump does not seem to hate Jews.
- If the claim boils down to white supremacy, why is the better comparison not with America's own racist history (in other words, I would grok what a 'Trump is KKK' argument was getting at better here.)
- Was Hitler particularly and uniquely motivated by closing a broken border?
- Is the argument that any mass deportation rounds up to Holocost level evil?
- Am I supposed to understand it as 'Hitler' is just secular for 'the devil' and it simply means 'Trump is Evil' without any more substantative depth intended than if someone called Obama 'the devil'?
iprayiam3
1mo ago
As someone who’s not particularly plugged into a tariff perspective either way, I will summarize what I took away from Trumps perspective on Rogan when talking about chips.
There are certain products we want more made of in America like chips and cars. Today we incentivize it with carrots and end up giving ridiculous subsidies to already rich companies, which further ruins organic domestic competition by picking winners and losers upfront. And it ends up not working to boot because it remains cheaper to produce overseas. So the companies do the minimum to get their subsidies or pull out halfway in leading to tremendous gov waste with little gain.
Since we’ve already agreed we want to market distort these products (I.e incentivize domestic production) tariffs apply a stick instead, making it more expensive to produce overseas to begin with. Thus the government doesn’t have to spend money, it in fact makes money during the transition, it doesn’t have to pick winners (all domestic producers can compete fairly), and it’s harder to cheat.
The other thing Trump mentioned was that this play can work because America is in a negotiating place of power, still very rich, but our advantage won’t last forever and a harsh tariff policy isn’t as effective if you can’t negotiate as well.
Without being able to judge the economic principles of all this, it sounds quite sensical to me, and to get a midwit like myself to disagree, I’ll need more from the other side than ‘experts disagree followed by theoretical jargon’.
iprayiam3
1mo ago
This is the key thing. There’s no way to reconcile the presentation on here with any mainstream narratives about him unless he’s also the world’s greatest and most restrained actor as well.
Trumps not hitler. Trumps not a wannabe dictator (sorry @Amadan). Trumps not senile. Trumps not a dimwitted lazy slob whose world view comes from watching cable news all day. Trumps not a paper thin egotist who doesn’t really like America or hold policy positions. Trumps not a phony fake executive who can’t actually think business.
But also Trumps not a genius. Trumps not a conservative. Trumps not a particularly visionary thinker or populist leader.
iprayiam3
1mo ago
Whether you liked the story or not (I did not). It was the most rambly part of the interview. It was the only part where Joe got impatient. After this the conversation settled down quite a bit
iprayiam3
1mo ago
I’m not Trump fan, or a Rogan guy. I thought the first twenty minutes were pretty tedious. But it gets much much better. It is actually quite enjoyable and insightful. I am saying this as a guy who has only ever sat through 1 other full Rogan show and never listened to a trump speech I. Full outside of a debate.
He does very well, his style works well in this format and once you settle into his ideoayncracies he’s still long winded , but it is very clear that he stays on topic in a particular way. He answers a lot of important questions that reveal his way of thinking. And there’s also a lot of fluff.
My favorite part was trump not really being interested in Joes alien obsession.
iprayiam3
1mo ago
The thing about the way trump talks is that, in addition to talking about what he wants to, he opens a lot of nested parentheticals within a thought. When he has room in long form like this, he will usually close most of the parentheticals back up to the main point eventually.
I still think this is frustrating and tedious, and his parentheticals are usually just free association, rather than in service to the thesis.
But it’s clearly not word salad or mental incompetence.
It’s very very far from Kamala’s inability to put together a coherent point of view on the spot
iprayiam3
1mo ago
Sorry I was unclear. It was an either question between the two, not whether you'd prefer either two to the current slate. But still, you've kind of answered what I was trying to get out. You go through such a long rant about how uniquely bad these two candidates are; but the next two most likely are 'maybe very slightly' better?
It's not about you minding it. It's the audicity of this specific propoganda. This particular lie carried an incredible amount of water across the media, specifically to discredit Trump by contrast as a subversion of the rule of law, and to counter serious accusations of a politicized justice department
See supercuts like this: https://x.com/mazemoore/status/1863563615858577505
In a world where this wasn't a not just major campaign theme, but an active judicial attack on Trump, no the lying wouldn't have mattered so much. If this was just a test of Biden's trustworthiness or integrity, that's one thing. Its the context of Biden using the lie to provide attack ground and further discredit criticism of his judicial weaponization, that make his lies so bad here.
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