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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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Crimes are real, and people in high places commit them. But prosecuting them is reactive, and prosecutorial discretion lends itself to petty political witch hunts. Trump supporters, of all people, should realize this.

No, we shouldn't. What we should realize is that the system has been used against us, legitimately or illegitimately, and so now it needs to be used against them as well. If the ways that federal, state, social and corporate power have been used against Red Tribe were acceptable, then they remain acceptable when we use them against Blue Tribe. If that cannot and will not be allowed to happen, then that is valuable information that we would do well to confirm before considering where we go from here.

If in fact the situation is one where Blue Tribe is fundamentally unwilling to accept application of their own rules against their interests, then this fact needs to be made common knowledge.

Sulla was so bad that Marius must take every measure and seize every power to save the Republic, otherwise the Optimates will keep winning forever. This can't have dire consequences down the line.

A fair point. Now offer your plan for how the powers we've seen turned against Red Tribe can be reliably leashed in the future. Tell me how we get back to a trustworthy media ecosystem. Tell me how we end systemic discrimination in education and employment against non-Blues. Tell me how we get the FBI to stop breaking the law to persecute Republicans, and then breaking it the other way to protect democrats. Tell me how we lock up cancel culture for good. Tell me how we solve the thing where the general Blue population believes that they have an inalienable right to lawless violence against perceived Reds without consequence or retaliation.

The system whereby we share power with Blues cannot survive the abuses we have seen. It has to go. One of the best ways to convince Blues of that fact is to use it against them, forcing them to fight back against it themselves out of self-preservation. This does not even require breaking laws in the way that they repeatedly have done, and continue to endorse doing. Merely enforcing the letter of the law will, I think, be more than sufficient.

offer your plan

Octavian. The Red vs Blue distinction must become meaningless. Frankly Trump is already some way there with the amount of Democrats he has made switch sides.

But really, the only way to end the war is to win a victory that is incomprehensible to its own paradigm. Using the system to prosecute the other side in retaliation isn't enough. The system must be destroyed and remade to such a degree it is unrecognizable.

Abolish the CIA and turn its role over to the DoD. Turn the FBI into a statistics department. Obliterate the DoE with extreme prejudice. Collapse the entire education Ponzi by making student loans forgivable in bankruptcy. End the Fed.

Afuera. Afuera. Afuera.

And don't stop there, create two new institutions for every one you destroy.

But I wouldn't even attempt to prosecute the people staffing the old decrepit system. Just let them go. Ignore them. Make their protests a meaningless antiquated impotent gesticulation that has no effect or meaning.

It's a high bar, but I genuinely think that short of this, you are locked in an endless struggle that ends with the death of the Republic. There can't be any reds and blues anymore.

Collapse the entire education Ponzi by making student loans forgivable in bankruptcy.

That’s an extremely counterproductive idea as stated if the goal is to attack schooling industry. It would be a huge boon to schooling industry if these were dischargeable. Instead, what you need to do is to stop the federal government providing the loans.

Why not allow them to be discharged in bankruptcy, but require the schools to cosign the loans?

That would work too.

This would bankrupt pretty much every non-ivy inside of a few years. Higher ed operates on razor thin margins. I want to burn down the system, but this is too much fire.

Private tier 1s and state schools is enough to provide education. Rest is mostly credential signaling.