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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 20, 2024

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Erik Prince was on Tucker Carlson. It was nearly two hours, and I enjoyed most of it. They talked about Ukraine, the CIA, republicans, Afghanistan, drone warfare, surveillance, smartphones, and much more.

https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1792963714779426941

https://rumble.com/v4wl5or-erik-prince-cia-corruption-killer-drones-and-government-surveillance.html

Also youtube, somewhere.

I wanted to transcribe this part, and talk about it. Approximately 1:09.

EP: There's a lot of people that are considered American citizens that probably shouldn't be considered American citizens.

TC: I agree with that completely, but an actual American, someone who grew up here.

EP: Fair. But the left has devalued American citizenship, it should mean something to be an American. I mean, a Roman citizen: it meant something.

TC: I mean a Venezuelan gang member who's here illegally is every bit as American as you, who was born in Western Michigan, so yes, I'm quite aware of that.

EP: Anchor babies, birthright citizenship, all of that must go.

TC: Yeah, you wonder if we've reached where that is impossible for the country to act in its own interest just because of the changes due to immigration.

EP: I read a lot of history, and I know that things have been a lot worse in certain societies, and corrective events can be shocking and traumatic to people but it's still possible.

I have not been shy about voicing my thoughts on citizenship, so to hear them echoed in some part on a platform like this was interesting and unexpected.

What other societies is he talking about? I am most familiar with the Reconquest, where the mohammadeans were driven out of Iberia over centuries. That fits pretty well with what Prince is saying. I'm less familiar with the partition of India, by religion, then the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan. This seems less relevant. What else is there? And what would that look like in the USA and Europe?

There's plenty to talk about from this conversation. The parts on drone warfare were particularly interesting to me, but didn't seem to fit with the rest of this post. And I'm out of time, so I post this as-is without any further commentary.

"What it would look like" in Europe would probably be the forced population swaps between Greece and Turkey after World War I, or the ethnic cleansing of Germans from Eastern Europe after World War II. There already exists a model for this in Europe, it's happened before. But nothing like this happens without state force and a willingness to resort to violence, which means nothing of the sort will happen as long as people continue to believe (as they do in Europe) that they just need to vote harder to solve the problem.

There is no public desire on a large-enough scale in the modern US or Europe for the kind of forced population movements that the alt-right wants. Which means that voting or no voting, it is not going to happen any time in the immediate future. It is not going to happen through voting because the people who want it are outvoted. It is not going to happen outside of voting because the people who want it to happen are outnumbered and outgunned by the people who do not want it to happen. Personally, I doubt that it will ever happen. Attitudes towards these things have simply changed enormously since 80 years ago and the number of non-whites in the US and Europe is growing too slowly to cause some sort of shocked paradigm shift among white people.

Today.

I honestly think in 20-30 years Europe has a very good chance of radicalizing. At some point the costs of immigration will be too high for the college educated living in expensive neighbors not to notice the issues.

Then again San Francisco exists so perhaps I am wrong.

Honestly if I were a billionaire the best way to turn people against immigration is probably funding programs sending elites to study in different areas. And notice the different quality of life in high and low trust societies. Then some gentle nudges discussing why that is so.

Then again San Francisco exists so perhaps I am wrong.

When I was in SF, the derelicts who were making the place unlivable were far more likely to be black-looking (i.e. presumably ADOS blacks) than any of the immigrant groups people are complaining about. If I had to guess, I would say the second-largest subgroup were white American druggies.