Tretiak
1hr ago
The above wasn’t me that you replied to. I wasn’t born in the 1950’s or 60’s (or 70’s) either. I also never said gay people never experienced any prejudice or persecution, in fact I made sure I stated as much.
Let me ask you this. LGBTQ activism may have achieved substantial political equality for gay people, but do you think the activism on par helped or harmed their social reputation in the eyes of the average person, the more aggressive it became?
No gays we ever knew growing up were getting beat up in the street for holding hands or were prevented from seeing each other in the hospital that we ever were aware of. Nor do I ever remember hearing anything like that until gay activism started becoming a thing. The former, nobody in our community (including our churches) had a problem with them. The latter was when everybody started having a problem with them.
Jointly filing taxes? Sure, you got me there. But at no point were any of these ever the kind of arguments I remember gay people leading with as I indicated above. They wanted to be allowed to peacefully live with their partners and engage in their own private activities without being persecuted for it. Many of them had that before gay marriage was a thing. Yes, I get that prejudiced people still exist. The point I'm getting at is we never saw any of that until gay activism started becoming a thing. And this is mostly the same with the trans community today; though that one I can remember there being prejudice against them growing up.
If you're someone who brings your partner along with you to our social gathering, everybody knew and nobody cared. You were still just like us. If you're someone who's all up in my face, calling me a bigot because I don't find your friend sexually attractive, you can get out of here with that nonsense.
They didn't want to have to keep a large chunk of their lives secret.
Their right to free expression doesn't entitle them to a right to an audience. When you're acting out sex acts on the footsteps of my church while I'm trying to take my niece to Mass, don't call the police when one of the attendees forcibly throws you off the property.
Tretiak
14hr ago
I'm torn when it comes to this discussion.
Take employers for instance. And take a look at this story I remember seeing years ago where a female mechanic was fired for her activity on an OnlyFan's account she had. Do employers not have a right to decide what kind of activities they want their business to be associated with? It's the same logic behind why a Catholic school can fire a gay teacher for their sexual orientation, despite having laws against discrimination. Each case has a unique set of circumstances attached to it I recognize, but this logic works both ways.
Gay people essentially made the argument for a long time that what two consenting adults do behind closed doors is none of their business. That's fine by me. And it was for most people, even before gay marriage was legalized. Nobody 'could've' stopped two consenting adults doing what they wanted behind closed doors anyway because it if was just between them, how would anybody even know about it? That argument would've had the same purchase a century ago as it did in recent years at the time it was made. So then what's the impetus for legalizing gay marriage then in that case? Was that simply an argument to get their foot in the door to advance a further expansion of privileges and rights? If it ended at two consenting adults, why the activism? Surely there shouldn't have been any. It's a private matter between consenting adults. Why is it in my face? Why is my Church prejudiced if it doesn't hang an LGBTQ flag outside it's doors? Seems like it was never about that in the first place.
... But the liberal system and norms that we enjoy in the US, which the First Amendment is part of, is why you largely don't have to worry about sitting in jail for your political opinions...
Eugene Debs would've disagreed.
To what extent are people allowed to leverage their political opinions to evoke meaningful political change in their country? Even China doesn't go around commonly jailing people for their privately held convictions and beliefs, even when they express said views openly, absent those opinions forming a real call to action among other people. The US is largely a place where you're free to act out your privately held beliefs whether personal or political to yourself or behind closed doors so long as you aren't effectuating real change. If most political protests had the impact of something like the January 6th riots, protesting would be significantly curbed or outright banned overnight.
This liberal system in all it's glory also leads the world with the highest incarceration rate in the world. Even within the most progressive pockets of the country.
Tretiak
15hr ago
Considering it's a dinner party in this context. Yeah, that's probably a good idea.
You're welcome.
I know how that can feel. It's difficult to move in that kind of world but you always need to do your best to retain good judgment while navigating through somber circumstances and having to make hard decisions. There's no other way to make progress. The boyfriend simply sounds like a deadbeat and is a dead end. Better to cut your losses early now than come to the same conclusion after you've pissed away too much time and end up right back with the same problem.
I had a very difficult life myself growing up. I had a lot of people around me when I was young. A lot of positive and negative influences on both sides, but the latter always weighs on the mind much more than the former which we quickly subsume and take for granted. When I was in school I had a very difficult time connecting with other kids. I was usually that kid that sat all the way in the back corner of the class and stayed quiet the whole day but always did his homework, stayed in an isolated corner on the playground during recess playing with sticks in the dirt, performed well and wasn't generally a nuisance to anyone. But there wasn't a lot of opportunity there either. The other kids couldn't keep up with me and the adults didn't want to have anything to do with me, so I was usually on an island to myself most of the time. I was just there to do my jail time and leave. Outside of that, I was very active in the neighborhood, but things weren't great there either.
I spent most of my time raising myself and learned to be skeptical of the thoughts others try to impart with you. A lot of the time others aren't independent actors looking out for your self-interest. They're motivated to have you think a certain way which benefits themselves. As I always told other neighborhood kids I'd mentor as I was getting older, "Always listen with your eyes, not with your ears." Don't ever do things that go against your own best judgment.
Whether it was school, the neighborhood or the home, one was almost never a reprieve from the other; and it was like a permanent nightmare that would never end. I still have thoughts about it every day and have for 20+ years that I've never been able to shake and probably never will. But experience is only what you take from it and I've learned a considerable amount from the things I've been though. Some lessons I think I would've never learned had I not gone through difficult things. There's little sense in moping or complaining about things as I see it. I was dealt a bad hand and played it as best as I could. You do your best. It's all that can be expected. And I'll continue to do the same. All you can do is have fun and smile as life takes you for a ride. And where that’s not always enough, I sometimes like to read some of my favorite religious scriptures:
“And recite to them the news of Noah, when he said to his people, "O my people, if my residence and my reminding of the signs of God has become burdensome upon you, then know that I have relied upon God. So resolve upon your plan and call upon your associates. Then let not your plan be obscure to you. Then carry it out upon me and do not let up on your attack.”
I hope things pick up for you and your family.
That congressman is a dumb asshole...
This is the kind of free speech I can enjoy. Love you Fruck.
... I am happy to fight for people who have views I find abhorrent...
Do you really fight for that out of some inherent admiration for a higher value or because tolerating those views is a price you pay for advancing good ideas in hopes that they flourish? I'll take the heat for my own stance on this but I don't regard free speech as an absolute value even though it's virtually impossible to overstate it's importance. It doesn't give you the right to harass people. It doesn't mean freedom from the consequences of your actions or statements. And I don't regard free speech as a value so high that it means we should burn the whole house down so one person can have his right to say something he's highly attached to.
I can push down the disgust I feel and focus on the principle. I will not fight for people who would turn around and lock me up for fighting for their right to speak.
Then you're fighting for a near non-existent number of people who feel the same way that you do. Unfortunately that isn't what most people want. More people will fight for privilege than principle. Inside of everyone (and especially where it concerns ideological lines) you're never going to coax the majority of people out of their friend/enemy distinction; whether they'll admit it to you or not.
Tretiak
16hr ago
A dinner party isn't an appropriate venue for that kind of behavior. Knowing how to read the room is half the problem:
"When in Rome, do as the Romans do." - Saint Ambrose
I'd party with a drunkard but I wouldn't get into business with one. I can stomach crassness and vulgarity pretty easily while still acknowledging it's proper place to be extremely limited.
Tretiak
16hr ago
"Charlie Kirk once said gun rights are worth the cost of a few shooting deaths. Kinda funny now huh? I wonder if he's changed his mind."
That implies thinking that if only you had appropriate gun control measures in place, the same thing wouldn't have happened. Yeah, I get the irony of it all. But as someone that didn't like Charlie Kirk at all, he wasn't being inconsistent here.
Very sorry for your loss.
My father committed suicide a couple of years ago and shortly thereafter I lost my older sibling to a drug overdose, and then a close family friend and as well as my cat. Not everybody copes the same way. There was much I miss 'about' them and the capabilities they had, but I didn't miss the kind of people they were and my memory wasn't punctuated with too many good experiences of them. Losing my cat of the 4 of them put me at a low point as I've always loved animals. When I think about it though, what I wish more than anything was that I could've had a different relationship with my father and sibling. Maybe things would've turned out different if we had that opportunity.
Tretiak
23hr ago
I remember reading the works of Fethullah Gulen. I know he passed recently. Does he have any real lingering impact or influence in Turkey today? Orlando Bosch was an anti-Cuban terrorist that openly lived out his days in the US. International rules and norms are ultimately superfluous if you're the world's only superpower and can act like a rogue state on the world stage. Israel can only do what it did in Doha because it has the full diplomatic and military backing of the US.
If you're a small State out on the geopolitical periphery of some regional power, you can't throw your weight around the same way bigger nations do. If you look at Singapore for instance, it's primary public policy focus diplomatically has always been to try and strengthen multilateral institutions and international cooperation between the countries of Southeast Asia and the US, to bring about a system of shared interests that doesn't involve military conflict. The US naturally doesn't want this because it wants to preserve and extend it's privileges and footprint in the region and because it has the might and ability to do so, it can sideline any recommendations and calls to peaceably work toward a different system for the future. China always tries to look for compromises with it's neighbors but it too is an aspiring regional hegemony and would like to carve out and dominate it's own sphere of influence.
You're thinking of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. but yeah.
I grew up in an environment where you either become desensitized to everything or you learn to develop a very thick skin. Leftists can have their parades and celebrations if they like. It doesn't bother me, nor should bother anyone who bought into the "leftist snowflake" or "lispy pussy" rhetoric. On a personal level there are days I feel like Christopher Hitchens did on the debate stage, "Love and peace? Very very overrated in my view." Call me immoral or immature if you like. Likewise I'll celebrate internally when one of theirs gets knocked off and they shouldn't have the gall to complain about it for the same reason I didn't complain about them. I’ve had a couple of moments in my life where I’ve felt a little too good about the death of some people who were truly assholes.
... just not acting like literal demons cackling with glee would suffice to temper my rage towards them. I consider it well earned at this point.
Civility is one thing. Moral policing is another. When I was growing up people just seemed to have so much more of a thicker skin than they do today. Nowadays you call someone faggot here, they act like a pearl clutching moron who looks at you like you just pulled out a gun and shot their dog. Which is odd because that's what the left-wing of old used to attack and criticize the right-wing for, because the stereotypical image of them was of a bunch of straight-laced white people that behaved like soccer moms. We didn't call that "being offensive," we called that "letting off," and most of the community kept quiet in the knowledge that sometimes people really did deserve it and had it coming to them. And it actually toughened those people up and caused them to shift their behavior for the better. I actually miss those days sometime.
This all goes to the point I was making earlier. This is why I said he was good for the right-wing establishment, but was bad for philosophical conservatism. I'm sure he was effective when it came to mobilizing resources and support for the establishment cause, which is why the money began to flow in for him. It was all but guaranteed to happen if you're someone who says to the media establishment and major political power brokers that you'll uphold their cause and talking points if given their backing.
This is why I consider people like like Charlie Kirk a stooge more than some kind of deep thinker, because he wasn't intellectually sophisticated at all. I forget what the occasion was and can't find the video presently, but I remember one of Nick Fuentes fan's heckling him during a speech Q&A where he's droning on about the Bush tax cuts, and the guy practically rolls his eyes and says to the rest of the audience, "okay, does anyone here care one damn bit about the 'Bush tax cuts'?" This is what most people I knew thought of Charlie Kirk. What people wanted at the time he first appeared on the scene was the entire political framework of assumptions thrown out. Fuentes wanted a new set of assumptions, I'm not sure what Owens wanted, but several people no longer wanted to hear the same tired diatribe on repeat, because Trump himself in 2016 threw the whole political playbook completely out the window and a new generation of activists saw it as their opportunity to make change. People like Charlie Kirk were quick to prevent that change from happening by bolting down the same frame of arguments to stop the challenge to American political orthodoxy. This is why he was bad for philosophical conservatism. Not emblematic of a deep thinker.
Tretiak
1d ago
It's always been in poor taste outside of the ghetto to celebrate over someone's death, but I'd be lying if I said the reports of someone's passing has never made be smirk before.
Tretiak
1d ago
No I get it. Just as outside the urban centers most of California is red. I always tell people whenever they ask, that I was born in "Red State California." It's just not the typical place people would place their bets on.
If people are asking Charlie Kirk of all people to defend their views, they've got problems much more fundamental than that. Charlie Kirk was good for the establishment right. He wasn't good for philosophical conservatism. He was a polished product marketed to people, in the same way Ben Shapiro was the "cool kid's philosopher."
Tretiak
1d ago
Had me fooled for a second. I would have thought Ezra Klein wrote this shit.
The biggest shock to me was that this happened in Utah of all places. That's like a fat, blue haired activist giving a lecture on transphobia getting shot in the middle of Seattle.
Tretiak
1d ago
I've never followed the young conservative influencers much, but Kirk always seemed like the moderate, respectable sort -- it's wild that he would be the victim of political violence and not someone like Fuentes.
When Charlie Kirk was on the up and up along with other figures like Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes riding the new political wave Trump ushered in, I can remember the presence of numerous conservatives who hated him for his gatekeeping of the mainstream within the new conservative movement. I'm not just talking about the Nick Fuentes faction either. Kirk attacked quite a few conservatives because they didn't fall in line by upholding the status quo of the mainline punditry and conservative mainstream. And that was a cheap and quick path to be catapulted into riches and be put in front of cameras. Nothing Charlie Kirk did was unique in the larger view of his activities. Fuentes is presently mourning over the loss, but the response I'm being hit with tells me even more right-wingers hated Charlie Kirk than his actual opposition does. There's quite a bit of celebrating here on my back end of things.
I think this is a good place to leave this discussion. If liberty is an idea so sacrosanct that it can’t be discussed in a meaningful relationship to the rest of the world in all its friction, I see little utility to it in any sense. Someone can hug the idea to them if they like, but it’s not for me; nor do most people care about it in that way.
If you don’t want to read in greater detail the information I want to present to you and simply dismiss it out of hand, that’s fine. The data itself is about “perceptions,” not how you may feel about the idea in private abstract.
It's not an assumption that the US is the wealthiest country in the world, it's an observation. And that's not the only barometer I mentioned -- another is the revealed preference of immigrants.
I didn’t say it’s an assumption that the US is the most wealthy country in the world. I said the assumption lies with thinking that that’s an important barometer for gauging liberty. Which I reject. 10 fish in a bucket is quantitatively the same thing as 1 fish in 10 buckets. The latter is a ‘wealthier’ society measured by its health as a whole, because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Conservatism includes a “place” for personal liberty in the lives of ordinary individuals. I completely buy that premise and reject any one of them that postulates the totalitarianism of liberty over anything of equal or greater importance.
Tretiak
2d ago
Who the hell steals vegetables?
You’d be surprised.
I also object to the idea that vulnerability to theft makes anything cheap, but I recognize that was tongue in cheek.
Thanks for noticing. Lol. A friend of mine impressed it upon me once: “you know if you shoplift you don’t pay taxes right?”
If you do not value liberty, perhaps. If you do value liberty, the phrase "effective governance" sets off alarm bells. Having a government that is more effective at directing the activities of its people is not an uncontroversially good thing. This is a difference in terminal values, not a matter of "better" or "worse" according to any values shared between you and most Americans.
Well if I look at the Democracy Perception Index 2020, which measures the public perception of a country's governance. 52% of respondents think France is democratic. 73% think China is democratic. They may not value your personal conception of liberty, but that doesn’t mean they don’t value liberty. To quote Alasdair MacIntyre’s “Whose Justice, Which Rationality?,” so too is the case with your Liberty. Maybe they’re brainwashed fools who don’t understand the true concept of liberty, but I’m doubtful.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If those Asian countries have all that human and social capital, why is the US the wealthiest and it isn't even close? If Asia has some other ineffable superiority, why do US anti-immigration people have to beat off that Asian human capital with a stick to keep it from relocating to the US?
Because as I said earlier if GDP and wealth is your sole barometer for measuring the success of a society, then your conclusion is built directly into your assumptions: the US is the wealthiest country in the world. I don’t buy that framing of the argument however. You and I aren’t having the same conversation.
Incidentally is immigration something I’m supposed to be impressed with here? Even most Afghans aren’t clamoring to come to the US and of those that are and desperately want to attach themselves to jet turbines and escape, I say let them. People immigrate all the time. So what? I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of any country the US is actively bombing, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that people are trying to escape it. They don’t envy American liberty. They envy American wealth. And unless you can explain to me how the latter is causally explained by the former, I’m not going to buy that argument. I’d argue you care as much about the terminal as well as instrumental values of your liberty, because you don’t place the same value on alternative conceptions of liberty. And the reason for this is because it doesn’t produce outcomes that are agreeable to you.
Also don’t know what your link has to do with my argument.
All I know now is that I want Kash Patel giving my eulogy. That’s hilarious.
A general appeal to God is good enough. Conservatives should appreciate where K.P. was trying to come from. Just like in serious court cases you’re called to swear before God or make an affirmation, it’s a gesture or sorts that for better or worse people don’t take too seriously. If K.P. was giving this statement in some theocracy, he’d have reason to worry.
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