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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   28937 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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V. The USA

The takeaway here really should be that the US is "too big to fail." Apparently the "laboratory of democracy" thing is working exactly as the founders intended-- no matter what an individual state does, there's going to be another state somewhere else doing the complete opposite thing. So even as particular regions of the country decline, other regions become good targets for immigration, able to scoop up all the people leaving the dysfunctional areas. That's the beauty of America's heterogenous geography and culture-- diversity is our strength. Bad federal policy can be a drag, sometimes... but the very nature of bad policy is that states are de-facto empowered by public opinion to circumvent or ignore it it. See: blue states with sanctuary cities, red states with de-facto abortion bans well before roe vs wade, and every state with legal marijuana currently. With tariffs, for example, if they manage to actually stick around whichever borders state figures out the most effective way to enable cross-border smuggling will get a competitive advantage over every other state.

Apparently the "laboratory of democracy" thing is working exactly as the founders intended-- no matter what an individual state does, there's going to be another state somewhere else doing the complete opposite thing

Really? Where are the states that discriminate against women, non-whites, and promote heterosexuality to the same extent that progressive states discriminate against men, whites, and promote minority sexualities and gender identities?

Plenty of states tested exactly that until very recently and failed. Now some states are performing a replication test in the other direction and also failing. What more do you want out of a laboratory? It's enough to test"shooting people is bad for them" and "getting shot by people is bad for you" in separate studies, you don't need to check both hypothesis at the exact same time.

Plenty of states tested exactly that until very recently and failed.

What exactly are you referring to? I don't recall any test followed by failure, I only recall a test that was stopped by the federal government through force.

What more do you want out of a laboratory?

I want it to work as advertised. We don't have some states doing one thing, and some doing the opposite. We have some states doing one thing, and the opposite being explicitly illegal.

What exactly are you referring to? I don't recall any test followed by failure, I only recall a test that was stopped by the federal government through force.

Jim crow laws lead to massive out-migration and a loss of economic and therefore political power. Exactly the same as what's happening to california now. The fact that the feds stopped them by force is exactly the point-- it's the tangible proof that those states lost the ability to contest outside control over their cultures. Now the feds are targeting california discrimination with anti-DEI measures. Seeing the parallels yet?

The fact that the feds stopped them by force is exactly the point-- it's the tangible proof that those states lost the ability to contest outside control over their cultures

Can you give an example of a system that's not a "laboratory of democracy" then? By that logic Soviet tanks rolling into Prague just shows how the Eastern Block was a "laboratory of democracy".

Seeing the parallels yet?

Not until they send in the 101st Airborne. But even that will only show the same rules are applied equally to both sides, not that the US is a laboratory of democracy. It will clearly disprove the latter point, in fact.

Can you give an example of a system that's not a "laboratory of democracy" then? By that logic Soviet tanks rolling into Prague just shows how the Eastern Block was a "laboratory of democracy".

A laboratory allows for safety equipment and controlled experiments. An external force coming in and wrecking your shit, in contrast, is the law of the jungle. Both lab experiments and warfare let you discover interesting new things about governance, but there's a big difference between your PI coming in and telling you to quit being an incompetent waste of grant funding vs. getting invaded by soviet tanks.

So to be clear, since the deployment of the 101st Airborne wasn't just about a cut in federal funding, it clearly crossed the line into proving that the US is not a laboratory of democracy, right?

The 101st is an internal force relative to the united states. So long as its application is democratic, the united states remains a laboratory of democracy.

Remember: everything the state does is backed by acts of violence. Whether or not the 101st is an actual, literal presence within a state, the existence of the power to deploy units like the 101st backstops every federal declaration to the states. Demanding "no violence whatsoever" is just the end of the american experiment period.

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A laboratory allows for safety equipment and controlled experiments. An external force coming in and wrecking your shit, in contrast, is the law of the jungle.

Airborne troops dispersing unarmed, underage protestors with bayonets mounted to their rifles is... what? Is the crucial difference that they didn't use actual tanks? Is it that it didn't come to actual fighting (to my knowledge)?

The difference is that the actions of the 101st were mediated by a democratically elected president rather than an unelected autocrat. The soviet union's member states were a laboratory, just not of democracy.

Well, according to the progressives, everywhere, including at least some of what you'd call the "progressive" states.

One screen, two completely different movies.

Sure, but they’re delusional. Where are the actual examples of pro-white, pro-traditional families discrimination? There aren’t any concrete examples, that’s what ‘systemic -ism’ means.

Sure, but they’re delusional.

Tell that to the voters. There's nothing in a political system that magically protects it from supremacy movements and hysterics- white supremacy in the 1920s, black supremacy in the 2020s, androsupremacy in the 1800s, gynosupremacy in the 1900s, etc.

Yes, we have examples in living memory when the political system did in fact protect them against those things (because the ruling class was sufficiently virtuous), but they're dead now.

It should be pretty trivial then to point to, say, men-only scholarships, pro-white "non-diversity statement" requirements for positions at universities, white only dorms, etc., etc...

It's there, it is just "systemic" or "unconscious" or some other manner of existing that is hard to specifically point at.

Or alternatively, they look at disparity of outcomes and work backwards to find the discrimination that necessarily must have caused it. But sure, of course they don't do that for fewer men graduating college than women since the 70s or fewer white guys in the NBA. It's a very selective analysis.

It doesn't count as some states doing the opposite of others, when one side is doing something explicitly, and the other subconsciously, imo.

They're not saying it's true, only perceived. Which is reality for many people

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