zeke5123a
21hr ago
OP blocked me so he won’t get my “wisdom” but I’m reminded of a rock band (think it might have been Van Halen) that demanded certain colors and quantities of m&ms. Of course, different color m&ms taste identical so it was a silly, arbitrary request. But the point was to test the people putting the concert together—if they can’t do the little arbitrary things maybe they are failing at the bigger important things.
This strikes me as in line with this. There isn’t a strategic goal. But they want to make sure troops follow orders implicitly.
zeke5123a
21hr ago
It seems to me the attempt to civilize war leads to incomplete victory leading to renewed tensions years down the line.
zeke5123a
1d ago
To me, this reads in part like a plea for the Latin mass
Edit: more flippant than I meant. It’s a good post. Just was thinking about the language part
zeke5123a
1d ago
Being a foodie is arguably the sine qua non of pmc membership. Matt doesn’t realize how little it actually matters because it’s the air he breathes.
zeke5123a
1d ago
Superficially sure. They all know who captain America is. But that doesn’t mean they’ve accepted American culture norms about say blasphemy laws.
zeke5123a
2d ago
I’m not saying technology necessarily makes assimilation harder. I’m saying it easily could and thus citing historic immigration assimilation is irrelevant unless you can strongly make the case that tech doesn’t matter or makes it better.
zeke5123a
2d ago
Matt Yglesias posted on X an argument in favor of immigration (having trouble finding it now). The argument was basically “you like lasagna right? Well if we didn’t allow Italians to immigrate no lasagna. And now Italians are pretty indistinguishable from other Americans so clearly that will be the case with others such as Somalians. Think of the future lasagna equivalent you’d get with no cost since the immigrants will assimilate.”
Leave aside the HBD argument. It seems to me that one Matt and those who make this argument miss is the massively different technology that exists today that didn’t exist in yesteryear. If you left Italy in the late 1800s, you couldn’t easily get back routinely to see family (whereas now it’s maybe a days travel). You couldn’t FaceTime them at a whim. You couldn’t text message them. The populations were truly cut off.
It is likely harder to assimilate in the modern world where immigrant populations are not cut off as opposed to the old world. So pointing to historic examples of assimilation do not hold for today because the factors have changed. Now maybe you still think there will be assimilation for different reasons. But you need to make that argument. Comparing like and unlike however cannot be your argument.
I don’t think this is some kind of groundbreaking point but why would presumably smart people like Yglesias make such a sloppy argument? Maybe they aren’t smart. Maybe they don’t encounter enough arguments to the contrary. Or maybe they are propagandists. I can’t help but think repeating a catechism has value to building political unity even (perhaps especially if) it’s fake.
zeke5123a
6d ago
I guess it depends on what “most” means. AOC, Crockett, and Omar all effectively excused it.
Yes, AOC initially decried it. But AOC went on the House floor and basically spent most of her time talking about why Kirk was terrible and why the House shouldn’t vote yes on the non binding resolution.
By the way, a majority of house Dems voted not to pass the resolution.
zeke5123a
6d ago
A father of two was just murdered for his political views. A none insignificant number of leftists cheered his murder. You have members of Congress saying murder bad but “long diatribe about how awful the decedent was” effectively saying “that this murder wasn’t that bad.”
So I don’t have the faith you do.
Is your argument that Dresden or Hiroshima were civilized?
More options
Context Copy link