netstack
Texas is freedom land
No bio...
User ID: 647
netstack
Texas is freedom land
11mo ago
Look at yourself.
Trawling lists to tally up your racial quotas. Wringing your hands over the tragic underrepresentation of your preferred demographic. So determined to believe that skin color (or however you can most favorably slice the boundaries) determines moral worth and political value. Behold the Übermensch!
You are giving an object lesson in why identity politics suck. You are recreating the field of grievance studies. I have no doubt that you could give me a dozen reasons why the stereotypically progressive position is foolish and immoral, so why are you wasting your time recreating it?
Have some self-respect.
I notice that there are still no convictions!
Edit: whoops—a guilty plea does count. I was wrong, then.
I also notice that you’re determined to work in Ron “JEW” DeSantis’s JEWISH hate speech law signed JEWISHLY in JEWrusalem. You’re very persistent. I will stand by what I said before: that bill is a sensible modification of existing law. Hanging out on a campus was already a crime; this breaks out intimidation as a specific motivation with different charges and reporting requirements. As @Gdanning pointed out, there’s a firm constitutional basis for that regardless of Charlottesville.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5mo ago
I assume you’re talking about the Netflix Escaping Twin Flames, rather than the slightly older Amazon Escaping Twin Flames Universe. Kind of weird that they were produced so closely; I doubt they have much difference in content or messaging.
With that out of the way.
Congratulations! You’ve successfully invoked the Worst Argument in the World, and now I feel obligated to defend the motte’s favorite punching bag. First: I do not think child transition is a good thing. I do not support people or charities endorsing it, implementing it, or making it school policy. Same goes for drag queen story hour, which gives me the same uncomfortable feeling as most Americans. The broader umbrella of “gender-affirming care” is something that I think is oversold, even a fad, but I would not deny it to consenting adults. I understand that you think the whole edifice is literally fake and gay. That’s no excuse for the Worst Argument.
The best of your comparisons between transgender advocacy and Twin Flames is the final ritual/medical practice. I have some objections there, mostly due to selection bias, but let’s call it a good comparison. Sure, pushing someone to undertake surgery is an extremely suspect way to shore up one’s own power.
Everything else gets shakier. Where’s the equivalent to cult control of income? To struggle sessions? Hey, sometimes people get therapy, which is kind of like being convinced to be doing something, which is kind of like what a cult would do. Or worse—sometimes they imitate their friends. Clearly, that must be further evidence of cult behavior.
One of the signature features of cults, one you mention yourself, is control of information. I agree that kids in public schools are relatively controlled. The cult of George Washington has held power for too long, and our kids are indoctrinated that lying about cherry trees is bad. Yes, schools teach things to children. Your legitimate objections to what they’re teaching is not evidence of a cult.
It’s almost a moot point, given that the youngest generation has more access to information than any before. They can go on their smartphones and find traditional gender roles. Why don’t they? How did teachers suddenly gain mythical powers of narrative control for this one subject?
The common thread, here, is that there is more than one explanation for what you’re noticing. Kids do copy their friends and take adults at their word, just as they do for everything else. Adults in positions of power are using this to promote politics or aesthetics, just as they do for everything else. You might have seen such phenomena in a cult documentary, or you might have seen it in a chess club, on a BBS, in a small 1800s town. It’s not unique to cults.
But the key piece, the one most conspicuous in its absence, is the leader. Cui bono? Who is the Jeff Divine, the Marshall Applewhite, the Jim Jones? That’s not to say a cult has to have a charismatic leader. It’s just the first thing people think about. The central example, as it were. Hence my accusations of Worst Argument.
You have one interesting piece of evidence: both this cult and these people pushed members towards invasive, extreme surgery. You have a smattering of weak evidence: trans advocates do a bunch of stuff which sort of, if you squint, looks like cult behavior instead of regular social dynamics. And you ignore any missing pieces because you’ve already made up your mind. Trans bad, cultists bad, therefore trans cultists.
And everyone clapped.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5mo ago
As far as I know, the locals got a say. They didn’t want Lee to hang around. I believe the bronze is going to be used for some sculpture or installation. While I’m sure you will find it low-effort or objectionable, it will still be public art. I think that’s a perfectly valid use of the materials. There’s no statute of statue limitations, and if the current residents (owners? Caretakers?) wanted to melt the statue, more power to them.
I do think the authorities were wary of what you describe. The article also cited a risk of “violence” if the statue were to remain on display somewhere. I imagine they were thinking of white supremacists reclaiming Mr. Lee for Stone Mountain, Dukes of Hazzarding their way over innocent museum visitors along the way. If I’m feeling charitable, they were probably also worried about attracting anti-Confederate vandals.
Your speculation, though, is off-base. Lee is just too removed to merit personal hostility. Can you think of any particularly gentlemanly myths about the guy? All I’ve got is that he joined the Confederacy out of some kind of principled stance; partial credit, but not particularly unique. And I expect my knowledge of historical trivia is a lot broader than the average statue-tipper.
No, sometimes people mean what they say. Lee represents the Confederacy more than he personifies it. Hundreds of thousands died because he, and people like him, chose to stand up for a garbage cause. Nothing personal about it.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
10mo ago
Looks good to me.
The most invasive part is potentially deplatforming some people on Twitter. Anything which discourages treating that cesspit as a “public square” is a net good in my book.
All the rest looks like boring cultural initiatives. Business as usual for the NEA and friends! Hardly worth being a Concerned Citizen over, no?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1yr ago
It’s a free country. I’m not going to clamor for trashy editorials to get canceled. That’s a waste of time.
If you’re arguing that this particular instance deserves a twitter mob or at least a sternly worded letter to the editor—why? What’s worse about this than about anti-white hip-hop, or jokes about gringos, or the whole squabble downthread about whether or not Ukrainians are an ethnicity? I don’t care about this article for the same reasons I don’t care about those. Christ has nothing to do with it.
I can’t take people who claim to be anti-racists seriously.
Yeah, you’ve made that pretty clear. Your demands for intellectual rigor are quite specific.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1yr ago
I can't seem to report comments at the moment, but you can put in more effort than importing Twitter takes.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
6mo ago
I have to assume you mean this WaPo article.
If so, I guess I’d better head off any misunderstandings. There’s really no sense in getting heated over this long-dead loser. Even in its current state, this statue holds together better than the Lost Cause mythos. It’s more defensible than the Confederacy, too. I think Lee’s just getting caught up with what Sherman did to Georgia.
Also, it looks like the detractors are doing this legally. I don’t see why you should get the final say over whether Lee’s body parts get to remain in a Union.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7mo ago
This is such a motte and bailey.
Your discontent with the procedural flaws is perfectly defensible. Even though I disagree with your assessment of the impact, I understand why you and others would feel so strongly. But then you insist that it constitutes stealing. This is wrong on the merits; it is also grossly insufficient to justify the response.
Stealing is a crime. The “violations” of the secret ballot were, as far as I can tell, quite legal. Perhaps they shouldn’t be—I found the arguments in last week’s thread quite convincing. How do you intend to bring those about? Does it involve Proud Boys hanging around polling places, deciding when the vote seems adequately secured? How do you prevent them from democratically deciding who looks too Democratic to vote?
Trespassing is also a crime, along with conspiracy, incitement, and whatever else they tossed at the rioters. They definitely should be. Whatever you think about the un-democratic quality of mail-in voting, it cannot be as bad as throwing out a vote by force. That is the central example of how democracies get dismantled, and ours is right to forbid it.
Win you get the spoils, lose you go to jail.
Hardly. Lose and flip the table, threaten your lawmakers, and demand the result be thrown out until it favors you, go to jail. Which of those factors is load-bearing?
Imagine the counterfactual world in which this mob made it to the Senate and hovered over their shoulders until getting the proclamation they wanted. Do you think that results in a more stable, honest democracy? Do you think blatant intimidation is a winning strategy? That the media won’t mine this for footage of the most intimidating rioter hovering next to the frailest, most sympathetic Senator?
The best outcome is a special election with massive turnout as Democrats (rightfully) claimed election interference. The more likely outcomes involve partisan violence. People who were already inclined to burn courthouses in the name of justice are going to take away a different lesson:
Win you get the spoils. Lose, you get to try again, so long as you can threaten violence.
But hey, at least it’d be democratic.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1yr ago
Your hatred is clouding your thinking. What, exactly, would you have considered the appropriate response?
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Engage in charity individually
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Coordinate aid to minimize the chaos
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Lock the doors and hope they go away
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Call their lawyers/politicians and make them go away
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Hunt the most dangerous game from their thoroughbred horses
Choose according to your personal valuation of community vs. charity. All but the last would have been valid--if this weren't an active political maneuver. By framing the whole program as owning the libs, DeSantis added a giant publicity cost to anything which could be reported as pearl-clutching. It's only natural to choose the options least likely to give him the headlines he craves. If that's cringeworthy or tone-deaf, so be it.
Oh, but you've got to have something to froth about, so it's time to pick apart the execution of that option.
The MV people seem to bear a large portion of this moral blame for creating the incentive
So "Republican governors" can organize a plan to ship them cross-country. And red states can pay tax dollars for the travel. And DeSantis can bluster and make political hay and otherwise ensure that it gets massive news coverage...and you're blaming the residents?
Say your roommate brings in a homeless guy from the street and tells you he needs to sleep on the couch you just bought. Maybe you put your foot down; maybe you decide to be a good Christian. If you're feeling really charitable you might even try to offer aid of your own.
The calculus changes if your roommate calls your friends, coworkers, and pastor and hints that you're going to lose your shit. Might you feel a little...constrained? A little incentivized to prove him wrong in front of your social circles?
Either way, it's not ambiguous who's to blame.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
9mo ago
It’s plenty CW. Too much, even.
“DAE think trans is like [insert bad thing here]?” Isn’t exactly new to this board.
Texas is 100% playing politics with the border. Well, maybe 90%; we've got to leave some room for Florida, which is apparently so overwhelmed that they have to use Texan migrants for their publicity stunts.
First, what's the cost of living in rural Texas or California? How about NYC? We already have a method for evaluating how much someone is willing to live in a particular location. It's curious that Republican lawmakers have chosen this particular cause to intervene in the market. There is a symmetrical argument for job markets; the demand for cheap agricultural labor in NYC does not compare to that in a commensurate area of west Texas or SoCal. Martha's Vineyard was a particularly extreme case--dumping migrants somewhere with no jobs and a high opportunity cost suggests that efficiency is a low priority indeed.
Second,
75k/yr is probably NYC's fair share (as 1/35 the US population)
How many illegal migrants do you think we get in a year? Because that rate suggests 75K * 35 = 2.6M/yr. Actually, I'm seeing a NYC population more like 1/39th of the US, which would suggest a total intake of 2.9M/yr. Given that the total illegal population has been stable or declining since 2007, at something like 10-12M, I find this rather unlikely. Source 1, source 2.
I don't have estimates for how many illegal immigrants are already in NYC, but Table 3 from source 2 estimates 520-630K in New York state. the city has 8.38M of the state's 19.5M people. Using the low end, since cost of living and agricultural labor likely pull migrants away from NYC, a rough estimate suggests 220K illegal immigrants already in NYC. That's somewhere between 1/44 and 1/36 of the total illegal population.
If the total illegal population is mostly stable, and NYC already has, to a first approximation, its "fair share" of that population...what's the justification for shipping them more migrants?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1yr ago
No, it is definitely possible for a space to avoid the extremists. I have seen ones last years. The keys to success seem like 1) starting out “apolitical” but left-friendly, and 2) having an actual point to the community. Yes, the moment an admin starts getting political it’s in trouble. Yes, if brigaders make a concerted effort to get on staff they can cause damage. No, that’s not guaranteed.
It’s certainly not some magical property of leftists that makes them looting parasites. I don’t know what fantasy land you’re living in where only your ingroup actually builds anything. I’m sure Ayn Rand would be proud.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1yr ago
Today I got a response to an old comment in which I'd argued
I'd credit [the positivity of leftist hobby spaces] not to an evangelist reward cycle, but to evaporative cooling. Leftist spaces are less likely to make people feel uncomfortable enough to leave.
...
A subset of the right wing has staked out "being allowed to use slurs" as their Gadsden flag. That circle is near-completely contained within the circle of users who value "owning the libs." As long as this is true, sane moderation is going to have a left-wing bias. To some degree, this must go out the window in extremist left spaces. I'm not going to claim ChapoTrapHouse was a bastion of reasoned debate. It's the hobbyist Discords and niche interests that live and breathe on niceness, community and civilization.
@desolation objected, noting that leftist activism is fully willing to make people uncomfortable:
Have we forgotten the whole phenomenon of "you can't be racist/sexist/whatever against [disfavoured group]" and every mainstream outlet defending using doxing and slurs against targets so long as they're in a disfavoured group?
In the interest of further discussion, I'm moving my response to the main thread.
I'll stand by the first statement, and emphasize that it refers to hobby-spaces-leaning-left, not extremists. I'm not sure what led you to this month-old post, but it was in response to a theory that "Leftists (especially LGBT-focused) congregate in highly socialized communities where every small action toward The Cause is socially reinforced." The OP had constructed a rather elaborate model of left-affiliated communities which portrayed them as hugboxing evangelists. In addition to being rather uncharitable, this overlooks an alternate theory: if a space is reasonably nice, will it end up full of leftists?
As for the second, yes and no. Yes, quoting Kendi or otherwise engaging in that flavor of anti-*ism is more socially acceptable than just being *ist. That's exactly why it drives away fewer users. It's both harder to deploy (and thus more rare) and less likely to offend leftists, centrists, or even most right-wingers.
If a community bans slurs, they will exclude some free speech absolutists. So long as there are more of those on the right, that will select for leftists. Banning slurs is a much more popular mod policy than banning "you can't be racist against X," probably because slurs are cheap and easy to deploy anywhere. Case study: Xbox Live. Would banning any discussion of critical race theory have had any impact on the population of 13yo gamers? What about banning the word "retard"? Apply the same conclusion to Discord, and we have a mechanism by which a neutral community adopts some "left-wing" norms merely by picking the rules with the most relevance. Repeat over months or years, banning the few who get really upset about censorship, and we end up with a left-leaning community which gets along smoothly.
Maybe every once in a while someone in that community gets away with...I'm actually struggling to think of anti-racist slurs? "Colonizer?" Maybe someone says that and right-wingers feel unwanted, or doxxing threats make them feel unsafe. It's also possible that the community enters a purity spiral and implodes. But this is rare, because we're talking about boring hobby groups, not activists.
Honestly, I don't see where mainstream publications come into this at all. The comments section for NYT op-eds is by no means a tight-knit hobbyist community. And while the media's stance on doxxing ranges from sympathetic to enthusiastic, I'm skeptical that such outlets have endorsed using slurs.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7mo ago
I feel a little bad about this, but whenever I see you complaining about Trump-persecution, it biases me in the other direction. As if the fact you felt a need to explain is evidence against his behavior. I know this isn’t really rational; it’s a reflex from years of apologetics.
I’m aware that courts, including NY in particular, have gone after Trump for stupid gotchas. Is this really one of them? The judge is granting a summary judgment in part. He gives detailed reasons why plaintiffs’ arguments were credible, while the defendants have consistently misrepresented their position. Throwing that out on the basis of one sloppy valuation is the definition of an isolated demand for rigor.
It looks like Trump has employed his traditional legal strategy of Throwing Shit at Walls. Dismiss this, dismiss that, usually in direct contradiction to precedent or to rulings earlier in the same case! See the fascinating section “Arguments Defendants Raise Again.” None of this inspires confidence.
If you’re going to do fraud, shouldn’t you avoid obvious mistakes? Mistakes like claiming a 3x overstatement of square footage was “subjective,” or that Mar-a-Lago was totally worth $1.5B, or that the SFCs could include a 15% premium for the “Trump brand” while simultaneously stating that they include no brand value. Easy things to avoid, right?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1yr ago
No.
Big prior against the US explicitly blowing up energy infrastructure. Bigger prior against the evidence only showing up on a random Substack. Sets off my “epistemic learned helplessness” flags.
I’d change my mind if mainstream outlets can point to a smoking gun.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
8mo ago
So…what’s the angle here? I’m assuming you think the verdict was bogus. Is it because
- The allegations weren’t credible?
- They were credible, but didn’t meet the standard for discrimination?
- They did, but that standard is wrong?
- The standard is reasonable, but the penalty was too harsh?
Going after the plaintiff’s background and sexual preferences is odd. Just because it makes for a good sneer doesn’t mean it has a bearing on the case. Unless you’re generally trying to damage her credibility? If so, I find it rather perverse to deny discrimination while implying she should have stuck to her own race.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1yr ago
Are you just going through every comment on this thread and bitching about your outgroup?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1yr ago
seeming
I’ve no doubt that getting arrested is an occasionally valuable social signal. I hear MLK was a criminal, too. Is your only complaint that white supremacists can’t figure out how to leverage it?
Here’s the source for your Berkeley anecdote. Nominative determinism claimed another victim; maybe he was just confused, and thought “It’s okay to be White” meant him in particular?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1yr ago
The holdouts are objectively obstructing. Mostly their own “teammates,” so it’s a bit silly for Democrats to act wounded, but still. Matt Gaetz et al. are representing their constituents at the expense of the GOP—per their mandate.
Why should it be Democrats’ responsibility to pick up after the toddlers?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2mo ago
I don’t find that line of reasoning very convincing. If the religious critics were right, it was in a stopped-clock sense.
Here are some circa-2010 objections, mostly on theological grounds. Either it’s a sin or it’s not. Either the denomination can extend rites to unrepentant sinners, or it can not. Lots of link rot, but in the statements I could access, churches weren’t justifying based on a slippery slope.
Here and here we have articles debating the slippery slope, but it’s towards polygamy. That’s a more credible threat than this 2004 scare story about horse marriage, though it’s more a vehicle for delivering the full slate of polygamy, social consensus, and “think of the children” arguments.
Transgender politics wasn’t in the Overton window at this point. It still wasn’t as of 2012, from what I see. Which makes sense—their issue isn’t marriage, or even equal rights. The current debate over social acceptability is categorically different.
I’m left with an impression that churches had their theological debates. The secular public backed those up with arguments like the slippery slope against polygamy. Nobody talked about the tiny, weird minority within the minority. But once that group gained traction, pattern matching kicked in, and suddenly this was the next step of the slippery slope. I don’t buy it.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
4mo ago
Problem is, if he were behind in the polls, he’d say the same thing. I suspect he’d still say it if he wasn’t running. It’s a bad look, a third of the country would be furious, and the bastard knows it. He’s going to claim complete immunity for everything until the day he dies, because “witch hunt!” is apparently an effective rallying cry.
Regardless of how I feel about his actual decisions, that’s kind of infuriating.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7mo ago
And you’re doing this by…joining other threads to talk about the ADL?
The OP hewed pretty close to bare links, so I can’t really blame you for taking your own spin.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
8mo ago
Barring the emergency exits is a plausible framing for deBoer’s strategy. At the least, it fits neatly in with stereotypes about socialists, which I guess makes it good enough for this board. I doubt that it was the motivation for soft-on-crime DAs, and I am confident that it is not, and never has been, the modus operandi for desegregation.
Your hypothesis is stupid. It’s needlessly complicated, and paints your enemies as both naive and devious. Why should activists expect results from foisting “the problem” onto an unwilling majority? Is desegregation really worthless except as a means to an end? Who’s coordinating this gambit, anyway?
Here’s a simpler explanation: people opposed segregation because they thought it was bad. Evil, pernicious, self-perpetuating. And people oppose harsh sentences, or racial profiling, or whatever triggered the campaigns of 2018—they oppose these things because they think they are wrong. Not because they’re playing 5D chess with recidivism. Not because they want their opponents to suffer. Because they expect the benefits outweigh any costs.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: for whites only.
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Man, I thought the immigration fraud argument was stupid when it came up years ago, and I think it’s stupid now. Are you the same guy who brought it up on Reddit? Because I’m pretty sure you’re citing the exact same tabloid. Do you have anything more credible?
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