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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 5, 2022

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So what about the German right-wing conspiracy that got busted? On one hand, they seem pretty crazy with conspiracy theories and actually believing that the German people would support a coup. On the other hand, they don't seem like random nobodies but the kind of people you would want on your coup if you were to do a coup.

Link to news story: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63885028

Some random thoughts:

  1. Was this conspiracy realistic? Or was it just a big larp? (Are all coups big larps?)

  2. How strong were the Russian connections? Are the arrests a blow to Putin?

  3. Why do the conspiracy thing when you can just do normal politics in AfD and actually get power the true and tried way [insert reference to well-known, democratically successful German right wing leader]. Or if you insist on conspiracy, you can at least march trough the institutions, it seems like the better option? And if you really need power nownow, why not just take the exit option (e.g. move to Russia and make your own auth-right comune there?)?

I'd be happy for someone who has an actual take or an interesting perspective on this to create their own top level thread.

Your auth-right commune might get sent wholesale to siege Popasna or reinforce the line near Bakhmut or whatever. Alternatively, denazified via prison rapes or set on fire by Chechens. Also the climate is terrible. Other than that, a decent idea.

This isn't the first time Europeans bust a conspiracy with a surprisingly competent military prepping and an inane, politically doomed premise. I guess it's a package deal – if you really reject democracy, you cannot recognize how it recruits people to defend itself.

Russian law makes father of multiple children exempt from draft, so if these auth-right going to have trad-level TFR instead of 1.2 there's no problem

This assumes that 1) the russian state honors protections given to non-russians and 2) these auth-right are going to have a trad-level TFR(American tradcaths are 3.6, which seems like it's more of a lower bound because of poor quality data, Haredi have a fertility rate of 6.6, Amish probably have a fertility rate of 5.5-ish, average American church attending christian is just above replacement. I can't find great data, but Afrikaners, Cossacks, and UGCC[Ukrainian Catholics, arguably the most conservative Catholic eastern rite subdivision and notably more religious than the country as a whole] look broadly similar or slightly higher. So say 2.5 as a reasonable lower bound on trad level TFR. My read is that these people weren't mostly religious right, they were extreme libertarians trying to justify themselves with historical revisionism, and that probably has a fertility rate closer to the German average than to replacement, let alone the above replacement conservative Christian bounce.)

Russian law also makes it illegal to deploy conscripts and other non-volunteers outside of Russian borders especially since Russia is not in a state of war. Some guardsmen thought they had legal case and went to court over it.

That is putting significant faith in Russian state following laws. To say nothing about fact that laws can be changed and that Putin’s mobilization decree has a secret clause.