laxam
1yr ago
So you think McCormick would have done better with which part of the electorate?
McCormick would have cleaned up in the suburbs and with independents, both groups Oz somehow managed to lose against a socialist loser with heart problems. McCormick codes as a business conservative in places that used to only elect business conservatives like the Philly collar counties. He would especially have had an easy time riding to victory over the brain dead if Lou Barletta were at the top of the ticket instead of Mastriano, who acted like an anchor, dragging the entire state party down with him.
McCormick may well still end up a Pennsylvania Senator. There's a lot of interest in having him run for Bob Casey's seat, although Casey is a tougher nut to crack than Fetterman was.
laxam
1yr ago
Yeah, and even the ultra-wealthy Southern plantation owners were the analogical poor cousins of European nobility, who were forced by markets and circumstances to take an unseemly level of interest in the day to day management of their farms, ie. they were rural capitalists subject to market pressures.
Their favorite pastime was even bitching about their Scottish factors.
laxam
1yr ago
If the community takes on any responsibility at all for healthcare (as pretty much every government on the planet does), this isn't true. What you put into your body effects the costs the community may need to pay in the future for the support of your health.
laxam
4d ago
Whether or not a successful Reconstruction where blacks enjoyed equal rights and Southern whites were reconciled to this and to the Union was ever really in the cards is a pretty deep historical question that would probably take a lifetime of historical research to opine on in an informed manner.
But not coming down hard on ex-rebs absolutely kiboshed any chance of serious armed insurgency and Ireland-style long term separatism. I'm of the opinion that a bit stiffer a spine from Congress in the 1880s could have preserved most of the civil rights against made but, as per above, that's not really something I can back up to an adequate degree.
laxam
5d ago
I'm serious. The light hand used against the ex-rebels after the Civil War -- Reconstruction but not imprisonment or execution -- played an important role in reconciling the South to once-again membership in the Union.
laxam
4mo ago
This argument conclusively fell through about 1860. One population in a group of states decided that the other population in a different group of states was not allowed to have the laws their electorates broadly supported, so they formed a massive mob and... well, you know the rest.
1860?
Dred Scott happened in 1857...
laxam
7mo ago
I continue to be unsure of how much you remember, but the invasion of Iraq took place almost two years after 9/11, with a lot of focus on things other than that event to justify the invasion to the people, like WMDs.
The invasion of Afghanistan took place a month after 9/11 and that absolutely was an expression of outrage by the country.
laxam
7mo ago
People wanted to know who was responsible the day of.
Unfortunately we can't test that. But the reason I believe in my model is that things as shocking as 9/11 I've seen happen elsewhere in countries where a war on terror wasn't in the interests of the ruling class, and those somehow failed to materialize the will for such a thing despite clearly fertile ground.
Most other countries cannot do what the US did.
laxam
7mo ago
If by the "Ukrainian people" you mean the people in charge behind Biden and Zelensky.
No, I mean the people who threw out and would have killed another leader they were unhappy with if he hadn't gotten away less than a decade ago
laxam
1yr ago
While true to an extent, it's also worth remembering that inter-faith marriages were almost as no-no as inter-racial marriage for a long time in many places. It has probably only been since the Boomers that that has entirely disappeared. In places where the immigrants were Protestant, they would likely intermarry and quickly assimilate with the English descended population. Where they were not, English descent is going to be relatively much lower.
laxam
1yr ago
Yeah, and I've seen commentary that that is significantly worse precisely because it's more difficult for Senators to just take stuff home.
laxam
11d ago
It has been quite the journey over the last decade seeing this general space, in its various homes, drift from being a place for a variety of dissenters, idle imaginers, original thinkers, and malcontents to being just another space for Trumpers to get together and gripe about everyone but themselves.
laxam
6mo ago
This is a lot of words to write, "I don't understand why aggregate statistics don't apply to the individual".
Subsets of aggregate data can move in different directions from the summary statistics of the whole dataset. Trying to understand why people don't take selected macro statistics as gospel truth about their own lives is, to use a common phrase, extremely out of touch.
And stuff like this:
- Republicans think the economy is doing absolutely terribly, much worse than Democrats think, and 3) that most of this perception difference is because Biden, a Democrat, currently occupies the White House.
Is bordering on outright delusional. There are more Americans than just Democrats and Republicans and you don't get 55% fair/poor personal financial situation from just Republicans (no matter how much I'd love for 55% of Americans to be Republicans, alas).
What's actually going on here is that the chattering classes and the politicians and bureaucrats they support are finding, once again, that they can't actually tell people what to think about their personal lives. It's baldly obvious that this group doesn't actually know what they're talking about any functionally better than most people and that their ability to cite macro statistics is more an attempt to cast a magic spell than a real explanation of ground truth.
laxam
1mo ago
The bill said "owned or controlled, directly or indirectly". That seems incredibly broad to be honest.
Here's the whole of the relevant section of the law, so people can judge for themselves how broad it is:
(g) Definitions
In this section:
(1) Controlled by a foreign adversary
The term controlled by a foreign adversary means, with respect to a covered company or other entity, that such company or other entity is—
(A) a foreign person that is domiciled in, is headquartered in, has its principal place of business in, or is organized under the laws of a foreign adversary country;
(B) an entity with respect to which a foreign person or combination of foreign persons described in subparagraph (A) directly or indirectly own at least a 20 percent stake; or
(C) a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity described in subparagraph (A) or (B).
(2) Covered company
(A) In general
The term covered company means an entity that operates, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that—
(i) permits a user to create an account or profile to generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content;
(ii) has more than 1,000,000 monthly active users with respect to at least 2 of the 3 months preceding the date on which a relevant determination of the President is made pursuant to paragraph (3)(B);
(iii) enables 1 or more users to generate or distribute content that can be viewed by other users of the website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application; and
(iv) enables 1 or more users to view content generated by other users of the website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application.
(B) Exclusion
The term covered company does not include an entity that operates a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.
(3) Foreign adversary controlled application
The term foreign adversary controlled application means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), by—
(A) any of—
(i) ByteDance, Ltd.;
(ii) TikTok;
(iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary; or
(iv) an entity owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii); or
(B) a covered company that—
(i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and
(ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of—
(I) a public notice proposing such determination; and
(II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and containing a classified annex and a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture.
(4) Foreign adversary country
The term foreign adversary country means a country specified in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code.
And here's the relevant, referenced section from subsection 4 above:
section 4872(d)(2):
(2) Covered nation.—The term “covered nation” means—
(A) the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea;
(B) the People’s Republic of China;
(C) the Russian Federation; and
(D) the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It's all honestly really quite narrow. It could not be applied to Twitter because Elon isn't 'domiciled in, is headquartered in, has its principal place of business in, or is organized under the laws of' 'the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea...the People's Republic of China...the Russian Federation...[or] the Islamic Republic of Iran', nor is Twitter 'directly or indirectly own[ed]' by someone with 'at least a 20 percent stake' who is domiciled, headquartered, doing business in, or organized under the laws of the preceding four countries.
If, someday, we added Saudi Arabia to that list (not something I would put past the left of the Democratic party, a portion of which will never get over Khashoggi), Twitter might be in trouble. Until then, this law would not apply.
The law is quite short. It's also pretty free of the kind of cross-references and surgical edits that make reading many other bills so confusing. Just make sure to understand that most things in the law are defined somewhere.
laxam
1yr ago
Then, I think, it's time for a risk assessment and an exploration of mitigation strategies. Have any of the women you've known ever carried a self defense weapon like mace or a taser?
laxam
5mo ago
Even contemporary pagans remarked on the exemplary sexual ethics of the early Christians.
laxam
6mo ago
The Bronze Age Middle East was dominated by organized states with professional armies (and large levies). Viking traders would have been crushed.
Bronze Age traders were legalistic extended families building kinship enterprises over large distances, like Medieval Italians.
laxam
1yr ago
Something tells me that 1/4 Mexican, 1/4 German, 1/2 English Americans are going to have the same white guilt complex as ones that aren’t 1/4 Mexican
It ultimately doesn't make a dramatic difference, but, in most parts of the country, whites are much less than half English.
Outside of Utah, parts of the South, and Upper New England, I would be surprised if most whites in any given area were 1/3 English.
laxam
1yr ago
Yes, this is the critical theory take on deafness, you don't have to explain it.
It's just amazing and a little depressing how the communists have penetrated right on down to ASL training.
laxam
1yr ago
Somehow, the US didn't learn its lesson re: sactions 215 years ago, with the Embargo Act.
laxam
1yr ago
I've written an effortpost on the topic of Oz and Mastriano as representing more pure divergent strains of Trumpism. Here But it's vital to understand that Oz is at best a strain, and to note his other weaknesses as a candidate.
It's a little weird to me how you go in so hard on calling Swedenborgians a cult and part of Oz's inauthenticity when, in actuality, they're an ancient sect (admittedly kind of weirdo, but no moreso than modern sects like the Charismatics) with deep roots in the Mid-Atlantic region that date back to the Revolution. His affiliations with them is probably one of the most Pennsylvania parts of him.
1.3 million people voted in the Republican primary, 5.3 million people voted in the general. Primary results don't mean much for the general, otherwise Mastriano wouldn't have gotten blown out everywhere.
What's convenient is that, every time a horrid, worthless candidate gets pushed over the primary top by the Orangenfuhrer, their loss is always excusable by something. Even if those losses are totally discordant with how other elections in the state went, like Oz and Mastriano running hundreds of thousands of votes behind the GOP House candidates in PA, or how the AZ GOP Treasurer obliterated their Democratic opponent. There's always some excuse.
Also, Trump's 2016 'get out the vote program' in PA...received fewer votes in PA than Obama, both times.
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