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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44963 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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You do not need to command a state or a military or a corporate office. Islamic terrorism is effective, consistently effective, because it is personal and unstoppable on a human level. No amount of political or social influence can stop the sheer mind-numbing fear of death that comes from a devoted and violent enemy.

Violence works. It has worked all throughout human history. Violence is the truest and most honest form of conflict resolution that exists, and it cuts through all bullshit. Violence's only downside is that once you commit to it your life is endangered, and so people shy away from it. But if you can cross that threshold, if you can accept you have no future that isn't soaked in your own blood, you can wield a level of power rivaling any President, any dictator, any CEO.

All power is a proxy for violence. At its core, influence of any kind is the ability to have violence inflicted on someone. When you embrace the violence yourself, you are power.

Why are you counting Islamic countries as a success story? I certainly would not want to live in an Islamic country, they have also been beaten by the Cathedral by being forced to a far weaker form of statehood than their natural resources should allow.

For instance, look at Norway - they have similar amounts of natural resources but played along with the progressive beast to some extent, even though they haven't joined the EU formally. Even though they have a much more socialized system, Norway still has a surprising amount of anti-woke thought and is not as censored as the US.

Islamic countries are terrible. Islamic terrorists are remarkably effective at coercing non-Islamic entities into appeasement and craven tolerance. I am praising the latter, not the former.

Do you not think the two are related at all? The violence inherent in Islam is to me the most convincing reason the developed world keeps them at arms length, while still playing lip service to muslims in meaningless woke media.

The world has had plenty of violent empires and states. The flaws of the Islamic world come from its people, violent or not.

My basic problem with political violence is that it has the danger of long-term civilizational collapse, if you get into an escalating gyre of political violence, like the Roman Empire for example.

If you think current society is bad enough to risk that sort of collapse, then I'll cede that we just fundamentally disagree. Currently I don't think our society is nearly bad enough to warrant total political war, especially with how powerful modern weapons are.

Ehhhhhhh. Political violence has a long history in the US of being used by both the victors and losers. The Wide Awakes, unions, race riots, etc.

To be more specific I mean using force to enact a coup or directly oust leaders. To my knowledge this has rarely happened in the US, excepting the Civil War end the revolution of course.

No amount of political or social influence can stop the sheer mind-numbing fear of death that comes from a devoted and violent enemy

yeah, and the same applies to the right, except worse because the progs control the state or whatever, so they just use the entire power of the state as the justified violent enemy to suppress the right. Guerilla movements only work because there isn't will to violently suppress them. And if rightoids start suicide bombing innocent trans people, there will be will to suppress them!

Yes, that's war. People on both sides die. It's why we use proxies, so that people don't have to die en masse. But the more faith in the proxies falters, the more one side dominates the processes and subverts the systems, the more reason there is to abandon the proxies.

I've said elsewhere we will not have a second Civil War. I stand by that. But we will have violent troubles.

right, and if you manage to convince the US military to do a right-wing coup (not possible itself), it'd be fine. but the point is - you suicide bomb, the state imprisons you and your friends, you don't get special treatment like hitler did or the communists did because nobody in the state wants to protect you, you lose. Nothing is accomplished - being gay was illegal 100 years ago and they still fought for it, a few terrorist threats aren't quite enough to win here. what's the point?

Islamic terrorists haven't convinced any foreign states to perform a pro-Islamic coup, yet nevertheless they have a chilling effect on their detractors, who will often twist themselves into pretzels performing apologetics.

You do not need to overthrow a state. You only ever need to hurt and frighten specific individuals in it to influence the collective entity.

Maybe islamic terrorism only works because those with power's willingness to violently suppress it varies? The US could have conquered afghanistan, or any other ME country, like an old-school colony, if such was desired.

And islamic terrorism is often explicitly state-sponsored, and isn't a useful way to "change the culture" on its own. Islamic terrorism hasn't made the west meaningfully less progressive in a coercive way.

Have they made it less 'progressive'? No, of course not. Have they made the definition of 'progressive' weirdly tolerant of Islamic norms that blatantly should be considered anti-progressive? I'd say undeniably, whether that's talking up the empowering nature of the hijab or overlooking mass child rape.

If Christians had half the tenacity Muslims do when it comes to violent martyrdom, Christianity would be significantly more respected in the west.

Have they made the definition of 'progressive' weirdly tolerant of Islamic norms that blatantly should be considered anti-progressive

This isn't because of terrorism though. It's just a standard progressive thing. Poor minority: must help, they do good things, yay! Irish nationalism good, zimbabwe nationalism good. See the same thing for indigenous people, who aren't doing any terrorism that isn't very progressive! Suicide bombings don't aid that.

I reject the notion it's coincidence that the minorities progressives appease the most are also the minorities that cause the most trouble when not appeased. Native Americans don't get half the simping blacks do, and that's because blacks scare the shit out of progressives. Same with Muslims.

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