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I am on record that large-scale, open-ended political violence is a preferable outcome to the political outcomes Blue Tribe appears to me to be aiming for, and further that I believe Red Tribe can and will decisively win such a fight. I have argued at length that the Constitution and rule of law are dead, and that their corpses provide little advantage to our present situation. I have argued at length, and continue to argue, that reconciliation between Reds and Blues is probably impossible in the foreseeable future, and that the culture war is terminal for our society as presently constituted. If you think that these positions do not qualify me for the label of extremism, I'd be interested in hearing your arguments as to why.
What separates me from Jim and his ilk is that I have a better understanding both of why that violence should be delayed as long as possible, and why we have advantages in executing it that are not necessarily compromised by such delays. If I am not mistaken, Jim himself, and certainly many others like him, argued that we were already past the point of no return, that political solutions were impossible, and that in fact we had already compromised our ability win an outright fight, leaving fighting immediately as a desperate last resort. And then the 2024 election happened, and suddenly our position is considerably better.
I am curious, I disagree and think civil war is very unlikely, but I think that if this does happen and if defeat were imminent, unleashing a nuclear holocaust on the US and cleansing it would be preferable to the red tribe being allowed to conquer and rule over the ruin of my Northeast. Does that make me an extremist as well? If so, which kind?
Yes, it makes you a Blue Tribe extremist. It also means, in my opinion, that you lack imagination.
Expound
Why not move somewhere else? Why nuclear bombardment? Why do you ignore forms of defeat that do not result in Reds ruling you with a jackboot; for instance, a new norm of strong federalism where Blues have blue laws in blue places and reds have red laws in red places? There's also the part where Reds would survive Nuclear bombardment a whole lot better than blues, and would in fact likely rebuild; the threat here is asymmetric to your side's disadvantage.
If Blue Empire were eternal despite all we Reds could attempt, if we were crushed as badly as the Christians in 1600s Japan, I think I would flee elsewhere before resorting to nuking the country. No evil rules eternal; sooner or later, often sooner, it burns itself out.
I think you are making a similar mistake to Jim; you also lack the inner coldness-of-heart, are also carried away by the narrative glories. You lack temper to lose.
In an actual scenario where they start a civil war and win, why would the Reds not rule with a jackboot? Even if they assure you, as a member of the Blue team, that they will not, as they try to persuade you to put down that big red button, why would you believe them?
I wouldn't trust any belligerent in the culture war to be magnanimous in victory on the best day, and here we are in a subthread where we're actually talking about the blog by some redtriber who is very openly fantasising about jackboots and lots of other redtribers are assuring us that he is very important and influential.
Jim doesn't come off as a red triber.
There's plenty of red tribers- not close to a majority mind you, but you can find them- who think women shouldn't vote, shouldn't be able to take out credit on their own, parents should be able to veto their marriages, non-Christians shouldn't be allowed to run for office. TND is not a common red tribe belief. Forced marriage of teenagers is simply not a red tribe belief- there is, likewise, a minority(a smaller one than the previous but it does exist) that thinks teenagers getting married would be a better idea than waiting, but 'people should be in love to get married(and a male/female pair that is in love should get married)' is a pretty core red tribe belief. Deep, deep red beliefs about marriage, family, and courtship may not be politically correct, but they are not Islamic either. I suspect the red or black tribe would kill Jim if he appeared likely to seize power- maybe the prophecy that Bubba and Tirone will join forces would come true.
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Because oppressing people is an unproductive pain in the ass. I've already written off California. If the population of LA wants to live in a shithole, they can do that to their hearts content. People who don't want to live in a shithole should move somewhere else. It's the same reason the Union, post-civil-war, didn't enslave or exterminate all the southerners; as modern Progressives frequently note with frustration and regret, they weren't actually Progressive enough to apply final solutions to the Southern Problem, and so peace resumed and the rupture largely healed.
You are correct to note that this is not something one can actually be certain of across the tribal divide, and not being ruled by people who hate you applies equally to Blues as it does to Reds. The goal should be to find a way to secure that goal that doesn't involve ruling lest you be ruled. Maybe there is no such way and we are doomed to fratricide, but I think my hope is better.
Who in this thread, specifically, is assuring you that he is very important and influential? I do not think he is important or influential to any significant degree. If his views ever gain prominence, well, second amendment solutions apply for people like him as well.
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For one thing, because it's HARD WORK. For another, because (credibly and enforceably) agreeing not to could end the civil war a lot sooner.
(As for Dreaded Jim, I doubt he's a red triber. Just a dissident blue like Yarvin)
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I mean my nuclear hellfile in this case is a metaphor for an artificial pathogen engineered to inflict maximum casualties on red tribers, but I get your meaning, retreat is probably a better option than mutual annihilation. I would need a way to make sure the red tribe wouldn't be able to complete an AGI for that to be reasonable, but on the whole, I would agree.
So, what, a pathogen keyed to ethnic genetic markers? Or maybe something that goes for corn or wheat, cause a famine? See, I don't dream of things like that, because my enemies aren't a race, they're an ideology. The line between good and evil really does run through every human heart. In any case, if Scott was right about thrive vs survive, it doesn't really matter what sci-fi superweapon you choose. However you create an environment favoring survival, we are the side that specializes in survival. To the extent that you change your own faction to increase your tolerance for survival conditions, you likely also reduce your ideological variance from people like me.
I generally don't spend much time worrying about superintelligent AGI. It seems to me that if it happens, there's not going to be much we can do about it, and my understanding of Alignment in the MIRI sense is that it's a pipe dream. I am very confident that coherent extrapolated volition doesn't exist, and neither does anything resembling it. Humans are not going to be able to code an omnibenevolent deity, so either they aren't going to be able to code a deity of any kind, or else my plan is to be conveniently dead before the Torment Nexus is finished booting up.
This is more of a musing/fantasy than a rational thought. I am mainly of the opinion that actual civil war is very unlikely as it would require sacrifice and effort from a population that has shown time and time again it is unwilling to do those things (The population in question is that of the USA not of one tribe).
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From the Numantian solution to "actually, we'd pull a superweapon from our ass and Just Win." It's funny how your participation in this thread was motivated by rightful disdain at that Jim guy's crass violent barbarism, and now you've arrived at fantasies of rightoid genocide.
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Depends on what outcomes you're referring to.
Too broad of a statement to analyze, need specifics. Aren't these things that Blue Tribe blame the Red Tribe for as well?
I don't see why this statement makes you an extremist. Maybe just a political realist?
I think you misunderstand the far-right position. Jim thinks we're past the point of no return because 50% of newborns are non-white. What's your political solution to that?
No, you're just operating from totally different first principles.
Responding to the edits:
"Where did things go wrong" is an important element of social critique. My answer is that things went wrong with the Enlightenment, which was not the triumph of rationality over superstition, but rather the opposite. That's a long and involved conversation, though.
I do not think my model is accurately summarized as "go back to the 1600s", more along the lines of "stop making a simple (but for some highly lucrative) mistake we made in the 1600s and have been continuously making ever since." This would be a better summary:
Skepticism, rationality and empiricism, and even instrumental materialism, do not mean believing that studies show.
In any case, I do not wish to "go back to the 90s". Free speech and human rights are a spook, "rule of law" is doomed because no set of rules can ever constrain human will. Values-coherence is a prerequisite for the formation and maintenance of a functional society; the aim is to achieve values-coherence with others, band together for mutual benefit and defense, and prevent rule by those who hate you.
That is certainly one point of contention. Jim and similar "right wingers" believe that the problem is blacks and browns, and wish that Reds and Blues could coordinate against them. I believe that the problem is Blues; if it were possible to coordinate with Blacks and Browns against them, that would be an entirely acceptable outcome. Browns and Blacks are a problem to the degree they empower Blues; if blue power is broken, disputes with blacks and browns are solvable in any number of ways.
Blue Tribe's goal is sociopolitical closure, to shut anyone who disagrees with them out of the economy, the political arena, and to the greatest extent possible society itself. In the classic formulation, they aim to make peaceful revolution impossible, and to the extent that they succeed they make violent revolution inevitable. The part people have missed, though, is the degree to which they have not succeeded in making peaceful revolution impossible.
Sure, and they're occasionally correct, after a fashion. But let's put it bluntly: the first amendment does not protect my speech, and the second amendment does not protect my right to keep and bear arms. What protects my rights is my ability to coordinate action among those who share sufficient values with me to be allies. There is no way to share power long-term with those who do not meet this basic criterion.
Creating a polity where Blues hold no sway, and hence browns and blacks are not an appreciable problem. encouraging blacks and browns committed to blueness to leave for blue areas seems like a pretty easy and bloodless solution. to the extent that this is not possible, it is because Blues still have too much power, which is again a problem I think we are in the process of solving.
Indeed we are. His are wrong and foolishly so.
I hope it's not to low effort for me to say thank you for expressing this, and doing so in such a clear manner. It sums up not just my disagreement with some people online, but also with some people I know IRL, because we are in agreement here, and they're at the "the problem is blacks and browns, and wish that Reds and Blues could coordinate against them" position.
(It's related to why I argue eugenics is still a deeply Progressive position, and tend to reference Confucians on social inequality.)
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I have to ask, becuase this seems like a pretty important wrinkle in your thesis here. To what degree and type of values-coherence do you require? You are a Christian, so I presume you are against pre-marital sex. In your ideal society, would anybody who thinks pre-marital sex is fine be expelled? Would anybody committing it be imprisoned?
My question really is how much values-coherence is enough; that is, where is the line? And how can you even quantitatively/rigorously determine where the line is?
In my tradcath filter bubble the normal response to fornication runs the spectrum from ostracism(for a seducer) to a shotgun wedding(for a courting couple that made a stupid mistake) with the median outcome being a mutual no-contact order. The man is held primarily responsible. 'Fornication is OK' is outside the overton window, 'Fornication sometimes happens and worrying too much is a cure being worse than the disease' is at the far end of it. People are not popularly held to have a right to privacy wrt past fornication, and it's very likely to restrict an individual's marriage prospects by a lot- but no one asks questions about a first child only taking six months or so.
I'm pretty sure we're a bit more conservative than @FCfromSSC on questions like that.
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Have you read Conservatives as Moral Mutants?
That's an example of what not enough overlap for society to function looks like.
Zunger was straightforwardly correct:
i am indeed a Christian. I don't require people to also be Christians to live in peace with them. I don't require the laws to be Christian laws to live in peace under them, since there is very little the law can do to secure Christian ends. I am happy to cooperate with people who disagree with me on some things to achieve the other things that we do agree on. I am willing to extend liberty to others to the extent that they are willing to extend liberty back.
On the other hand, the more cohesive my community and the more fringe the demand of tolerance from those at its fringes, the more it seems to me that people who are incapable of fitting in should simply go somewhere else. This principle works the other way: I and mine should not casually intrude into the lives and communities of those alien to us. We should interact with those we can tolerate, and those we cannot tolerate we should separate from and avoid. This is not out of any high-minded principle, but only the practical wisdom of circles of concern. People far away are not generally as much of a problem as those close by; you are never going to conquer the whole world and institute global utopia, so the best thing is to make your bit as good as possible, and let those far away do as they will.
There is no definable "line". Either people are willing to cooperate or they are not. Either you can tolerate others or you cannot. Both maximizing and minimizing tolerance have serious downsides; you need a happy medium, and there is no way to rigorously define where that medium is. There is no way to codify it into a set of legible rules. If you have too much tolerance, values drift and society collapses. If you have too little tolerance, you fall into purity spirals and infighting and society collapses. There's no substitute for prudence and sound judgement.
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much confused! The Blues have succeeded in making peaceful revolution possible?
I observe that Blues tried and failed to make peaceful revolution against them impossible.
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But, if I’m reading you correctly, ultimately your end goal is to form a regional society of people who share your moral intuitions. If Blacks and Browns refuse to relinquish Blueness, or at any rate refuse to become sufficiently compatible with your Redness, doesn’t that mean you will either have to quell them or expel them? And if so, isn’t TDJ just skipping the middle steps?
What solutions were you envisaging?
Sure, or enough of them to limit the scope and scale of political conflict to something survivable.
If they can't secure blue power by winning a vote, and they can't compromise law enforcement, why do they need to be either quelled or expelled? If they are content to live as a political minority, well and good. if they are not content, they can move somewhere that seems more congenial.
Blue Power comes from several sources, among them political machines, long-term control of the knowledge production and dissemination apparatus, entrenched bureaucracy, and entrenched legal precedent. The foundations of most of these sources are visibly decaying. Without them, I do not think Blue Tribe is capable of the sociopolitical closure they threaten. Without that threat, the geographical sortition that has been ongoing for well-over a decade should make it possible to simply allow them to stew in their own shitholes, far away from me. and if not, the sword will remain a viable option for the foreseeable future.
Fair. I would consider ‘no meaningful political or extra-political power’ as ‘quelled’ but that’s really quibbling over semantics.
I would say this is optimistic. The fact remains that the high-paying and high-status jobs are all in Blue areas and are likely to remain so. Your children and their children are likely to have to grapple with some level of Blue domination for as long as this is the case, although having a reliable bolt hole might make this more comfortable.
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Agreed. But I think many conservatives do not want a bloodless solution. They want to overcome liberalism's tolerance of mediocrity and comfort. They want a return of martial values and spirit. They're Occidentalists, seeing bourgeois values as soft and unworthy of emulation.
Can you give some examples of these "conservatives" of which you speak?
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So then a progressive effort to scrap that, you'd just be indifferent? Waste of time to try and do anything about it?
No. You use the progressive efforts to coordinate united opposition from your own tribe. Such opposition has, in the past, involved both voting and passing laws in some cases, and shooting federal agents and bombing federal buildings in other cases. What you cannot do is assume that "playing by the rules" is the sum of valid responses, because "rules" do not work the way the "play by the rules" narrative assumes they do.
Blue efforts to kill the second amendment de jure or de facto should be resisted, because even as a corpse the second amendment is a powerful rally point. But at the same time, one must remember that the second amendment, alive or dead, was only ever a tool, and the aim that tool was designed for must be pursued regardless, within or without the law as may be necessary.
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