zataomm
10mo ago
I hadn't heard of the "Cult of the Offensive" before. Something I've often wondered about lately is how the world went from a system where winning territory by military conquest was just the way things were done, to our current system where the idea that one country would invade its neighbor for such base motives as gaining territory is viewed as scandalous. But maybe it makes sense for our morals to change in this way, as we adapt to the reality that defense is easier than offense.
Very interesting. If you have time, can you elaborate on what Germany was doing to destabilize the continent and/or prevent its re-stabilization? In the book Buchanan claims that Germany would have been largely content with a tranquil European continent but minimal colonial presence, so their only real goal was a navy large enough that England would fear getting involved in a conflict with Germany and Germany wouldn't be cut off via English control of its sea routes to the wider world.
zataomm
10mo ago
Thanks a lot for this detailed reply! I am only vaguely aware of any of this stuff. Can you recommend a good book on WW1 to learn more?
Honestly my impression as I start to learn about this topic is the opposite of this. It it looking like Britain (today Russia) really screwed things up. I get why they did it and saw it as their interest to oppose Germany, but everybody would have been better off just letting Germany (today America) win to establish pax Germana on the European continent.
But yeah, I guess I am trying to look for something deeper than "Putin is an insane tyrant" as the reason for Russia's current behavior. Do you really oppose even that minimal amount of respect and context applied to the current conflict?
zataomm
10mo ago
Based on what I'm reading in the book, Britain was the early power with the largest degree of choice about whether to get involved. They weren't directly threatened by Germany, but decided that opposing Germany would put them in a better strategic position with respect to dominating the seas and maintaining their empire. So British involvement was responsible for prolonging the conflict and turning it into a "World War". So I think Britain's position as a key figure pursuing its long-term strategy makes it a fair comparison to Russia of today.
zataomm
10mo ago
Anybody want to talk about World War I? This is culture war in the sense that the culture war led me here, and its application definitely seems to fall along tribal lines, even though this is all ancient history.
So on a recommendation on Twitter from MartyrMade, I've started reading Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War so I can figure out who the real villain was in WWII. But I guess we can't get there without discussing WWI, so that's where the book begins. A fundamental cause of the war, according to the author, is that Germany and England had conflicting views of security. In general, England's policy was to play European powers off each other, always supporting the second-strongest power against the strongest power to ensure that no one country would dominate the continent and thus be in a position to challenge Britain. In the early 1900s, that meant supporting France in opposition to Germany. Germany's idea of peace, on the other hand, was precisely to dominate and unify the continent under German rule, thus ensuring that they would have no problems on the continent.
As an uninformed person, I am struck by a similarity in current politices with America and Russia. It seems that America finds itself in the same position as Germany before WWI, seeking to unify as many countries as possible under NATO, effectively ensuring that America's vision dominates world politics. On the other hand, Russia's best available strategy is to weaken America wherever possible, by supporting America's most troublesome enemies, e.g. Iran.
The point of all this is I'm wondering whether there is any way to achieve Trump's goal in the Ukraine war, which is for "people to stop dying". America being dominant means they can't really allow Russia to challenge their world order by taking over Ukraine and stopping NATO expansion. But if Russia is going to be able to exert its will at all in the world, they can't really allow Ukraine to become just another part of the Western bloc.
Still, Trump says he'll solve the issue and the war will be over within 24 hours of becoming president. What do you think his plan is?
zataomm
10mo ago
I basically had the same initial reaction and Hill was certainly being a jerk. Rolling his very tinted windows up while the police were talking to him would definitely make anyone nervous. But having looked at the ProtectAndServe thread on the matter, I’ve come around the general consensus that the police escalated the situation way more than they should have. They really did not need to take him to the ground forcibly after he opened the car door. Tyreek Hill’s bad behavior led to bad behavior on the part of the police. Many such cases.
zataomm
10mo ago
Getting upset at Trump's lies is like getting upset at Gillette after discovering that there, in fact, might be something better a man can get
Love this analogy. I definitely feel the same way. I find Biden‘s lies, which have an air of supposed respectability about them, much more offensive than Trump’s lies, even when Trump’s are more blatant.
zataomm
11mo ago
Viscerallly I kind of get it, but legally, what is the difference between this and my web browser, which doesn’t restrict me from typing “Nintendo, Disney, and Coca Cola are run by pedophiles”? I try not to be too much of a libertarian autist, but I have a hard time not seeing this as a tool which can be misused like any other.
zataomm
11mo ago
Link to the Axios community-noted tweet: https://x.com/axios/status/1816078350659494130
zataomm
11mo ago
Thanks for this. I hadn’t realized there was a second body cam, from the first one I wasn’t seeing the throw at all and was wondering how this was even controversial. Very questionable tactics by the officers, but it seems very clear she was trying to throw the water at them.
So this morning I am inspired by a clip from the otherwise-decent (from a libertarian perspective) movie Captain Fantastic. In the scene, a small child laments the pernicious implications of the Citizens United ruling, saying it means "our country is ruled by corporations and their lobbyists." I'm wondering whether, as a matter of rhetoric, it would be effective to embarrass people with the specific facts of the Citizens United v. FEC case. "Defend this, if you dare!" While for many, that descision represents all that is evil as they champion the high-minded principle of "preventing corporations from buying elections," I suspect few would defend the particulars of how the law would have applied in that instance.
The usual story is this: the Supreme Court decision's decision in Citizens United opened the floodgates for corporate money to dominate American elections, as the Supreme Court outrageously declared that "corporations are people." But this portrayal overlooks the specific and basically indefensible details of the case itself. Citizens United, a nonprofit organization, sought to air a documentary critical of Hillary Clinton leading up to the 2008 primary elections. The Federal Election Commission blocked the documentary, citing campaign finance regulations that restricted "electioneering communications" by corporations and labor unions within a certain time frame before elections.
Imagine an analogous case today: a group of citizens is determined to prove that the prosecutions against Donald Trump are not politically-motivated "lawfare", but rather solid and legitimate cases, and produces a documentary to make that argument, only to be blocked by from disseminating the film. Is this not an outrageous position for the government to take?
Opening up this line of attack could easily backfire: if I make people defend the facts of specific Supreme Court cases, I am sure they can find their own Supreme Court decisions which I like, but which side with unsympathetic parties. I don't really want to stand up next to the guy holding a "God hates fags" sign. But the iconic and notorious status of the Citizens United case in popular discourse deserves some effort at pushback.
tl;dr: If you are so worried about for-profit corporations buying elections, why not pass a law that is narrowly-tailored to prevent just that, without going after someone who creates a kickstarter for their latest documentary "Trump: the Orange Menace"?
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. You're definitely correct that he downplays the role of German aggression or treats it as a background inevitability in his narrative of the leadup to WW1.
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