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Nigga, this is just going through the exact motions Amadan outlined. I get it, libtards started it by employing legions of late night comedians and entertainers to metaphorically pour shit on Republicans for years except (duplicitous as always) they his behind a veneer of civility while their Hollywood Jews did the dirty work for them. Trump isn’t doing anything fundamentally different, he’s just more crass and if anything the crassness and directness of it is a virtue, there’s an honesty to the directness of it.
My point as always is that there is value to norms. Even if the norms seem paper thin or hypocritical I believe they are better than nothing. There are just proper ways a president should behave. I believe there is serious value in having a degree of ritual and civic religion. It is always possible to construct a plausible sounding reason why your enemies really started it, your enemies are actually so much worse than this, blah blah blah. It has to stop somewhere else escalation begets escalation. I know everyone will tell me this isn’t an escalation because libtards have already done a million worse things, but that’s exactly how escalation works and can always be justified
There are values in norms, but when one side gets to display a (mock) severed head to great applause, and responds to objections with "What? it's just a joke! why are you lot so sensitive, why are you always over-reacting?" then I think the erosion of norms set in.
Yes, Griffin got consequences for that, but there were defenders for it (and she seemed to learn nothing from "I torpedoed my career with a dumb stunt" by repeating it). I think the problem is that politics is pig-wrestling, and the mud is just getting deeper.
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Actually, no, it wasn't. I raised a general point on the meta level, one that I think is reasonable to ask and really could do with some effort in answering:
Or to put it another way for you or @Amadan or @ThomasdelVasto or anyone else interested, if the sort of argument Amadan describes seems bad, what would a better form of argument look like, in your view?
...and then on the object level I raised a separate point about the division of labor model versus the current jack-of-all-trades model. I made no argument that jack-of-all-trades is better, only noted that if one is arguing against it, one should do so honestly.
In any case, if that's a discussion you'd like to have, I'm all for it, but the way it doesn't start is this:
That is not my argument, and I don't appreciate you implying that it is. I am fully capable of speaking for myself, and do not require your assistance in framing my sentences. We actually have a specific rule about this:
I think you can probably find at least one mottezan who would endorse each individual sentence you've offered there. I decline to answer for all of them in aggregate.
There is not, however, infinite value in norms, and many people, myself among them, believe the old system was worse for a variety of reasons quite apart from "dirty work" done by "Hollywood jews". The old system insulated our politicians from accountability on a scale that was appallingly unacceptable, because the formalized channels allowed a small set of elites massively disproportionate control over what the public at large knew, understood, and thought about. This had woeful consequences, such that enough of us rebelled to burn the old system down. You may disagree with that decision, but you would do well to engage with why we made it if you want to convince us that we've made a mistake.
But again, the argument is generally not that ritual and civic religion do not have serious value. The argument is that they do not have enough value to offset the abuses the old system enabled and continues to enable.
The "somewhere" that it has to stop is the grave. It can stop short of there, if enough people on each side recognize value in doing so. And yet: "give me liberty or give me death".
Many people on both sides believe that the principles at stake here are worth fighting and even killing over. Too many of them concluded this for the old system to survive, and so it has been gutted and is currently bleeding out in a ditch. I am not sorry for that, because I hated the old system with a passion words cannot adequately convey, and wish only that it would die faster.
This is a discussion forum. If you want to discuss why I believe what I believe, I'm happy to discuss that with you. You are certainly correct that many people here disagree with you on the value of the old norms. You are probably correct about the general shape of many of their arguments. But here's the thing: if their arguments don't persuade you, that doesn't mean they aren't persuasive. Maybe they're unreasonable. Alternatively, maybe you're unreasonable. If you want to discuss it, discuss it. If you want to take a "moral stand" and then complain when others object without substantively addressing their objections, it seems to me you've misunderstood what this forum is for.
I'm not trying to suggest that Trump is anywhere in the same league as Lincoln, but it is interesting how closely the contemporary complaints about Lincoln and the nascent Republican movement mirror those about Trump and MAGA today.
He is shrill. He is crass, He is uncultured. He is not even a proper gentleman, he is a backwoods bumpkin who grew up in a log shack. Electing him would be an insult to the institution of the presidency, and make an already tense situation worse.
Republicans in turn would point to the Caning of Charles Sumner and the ongoing civil unrest in the Kansas and Missouri territories claiming that the Democrats have shown zero interest in reigning in their violent fringe while the Whigs care more about losing gracefully while getting fat off the public trough than they do tackling the serious problems facing the nation.
I imagine there is an alternate timeline where moderate Democrats did more to police their extremists or the Whigs showed more spine and as a result Abraham Lincoln never became president. Is that the better timeline? I do not know.
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I'm not sure I understand the question. I have staked out my position before: we should not go accelerationist and try to purge each other.
My argument has clearly lost to the accelerationists on both sides who want to purge each other. I'm being descriptive here, not making any (useless) prescriptions.
I think people are piling on you for being right, but... seriously, what is the alternative here? Lie down and get ground down more and more? The purity spiral goes ever upward. People just want to draw a line in the sand and say no more, cross it and we'll shoot you. I don't think that's an accelerationist position so much as an ultimatum.
Of course, it then loses its effect given that the lines keep being crossed and not enough people keep being shot, so the normie appetite for political violence is somehow much, much less than people profess it to be.
I'm gagging for an alternative, because American purges and culture wars promise to be ruinous beyond their borders. But hey, the same could be said about their economy.
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I think the problem here is that your (possibly yours personally, but definitely my political opponents) ritual and civic religion is directly contradictory to mine and so why should I not want to tear it down and replace it with my own?
Yes. When one side or the other is so beaten down they accept defeat. That’s when it will stop. That’s how wars, even culture wars, work. And then it will start again at some point in the future, either near or far, about the same or different things.
Or we’ll all be AI serfs. I guess that might be enough to finally beat that dawg out of humanity.
Because while you're in the process of attempting to do this (poorly, not because you're bad at it, but because the other side will try and stop you) China builds the factories that build more factories and then drone-spams so hard you lose naval control over the key shipping lanes and then lose power projection abilities and then lose status as the world's reserve currency and then get to live without all the fun benefits of being the world's sole superpower.
Also there's no guarantee your system won't also be full of problems once it's settled and starts rotting, as all systems exposed to entropy and human nature do.
"You should go commit suicide, or let us shoot you in the head if we get particularly bored, because if you don't America Will Be Destroyed!" isn't nearly as compelling an argument as you seem to think it is.
(Alternating between "America must be destroyed!" and "you're going to destroy America!" is even less compelling—but that's neither here nor there...)
That isn't my argument? I wouldn't even vote Dem if I was American.
My argument is both sides of America have gone full retard, are ripping eachother apart myopically while the credible threat of losing global hegemony looms.
My further argument is "nuh uh they started it/are worse/make me really mad" may be true but fundamentally don't matter in the broader context, which exists regardless of your feelings towards it.
It's literally the definition of re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as it sinks, and not only is everyone focused on the chairs, they're screaming that half the crew are worse than you while everyone works together to unlock as many water tight bulkheads as they can. Maybe you're right about them, but you're still sinking!
I have actual, literal, in-real-life dead friends driven to suicide in this mess. "Loss of hegemony" is way down the list. I'll worry about sinking once I'm not drowning.
I'm so sorry to hear that, that's awful
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To what extent does Red Tribe get to live with "the fun benefits of being the world's sole superpower" while ground under the Blue Tribe's boots?
A world where "China builds the factories that build more factories" et cetera, et cetera, and America is no longer on top, but Blue Tribe is destroyed is strictly preferable to one where "the world's sole superpower" is under firm Blue control (and used to further crush Reds).
For that matter, the breakup of the US is worth it if it means the Blues are destroyed.
I won't go so far as approving a mutual annihilation outcome, but any scenario where Red Tribe still exists to some degree, but Blues have gone extinct is ultimately acceptable.
Brother W.H.A.T.
Have you ever purchased any item that was manufactured overseas? Isn't it nice how cheap they are? They're cheap because the USA ensures global commerce is smooth, very smooth. They're also cheap because the USD is very strong because the USD is the reserve currency.
Do you have any investments? The strength of the USA equity market is in part due to its status as a global superpower.
Do you enjoy anything paid for by the government? Like roads, electricity, massive defect spending on factories and bridges. The USA is able to run obscene defects due to the USD being a reserve currency generating strong demand for it, reducing inflation.
Do you have a 30 year fixed mortgage? Same mechanism there. Did you grow up in a house that had one? Massive W for you guys.
I could go on...
I'm not saying the blue tribe aren't nightmares, I wouldn't even vote Dem if I was American. But let's not be dishonest here, if you live on American soil you enjoy massive benefits as a result.
Depending on how you define "overseas," then potentially practically everything, given not much is manufactured here in AK.
No, because SSI asset limits (my net assets can't exceed $2k) prevent me from having any kinds of savings or investments.
I can barely afford the (recently increased) rent on my apartment, even after my (maxed-out) government subsidy.
I grew up in a mobile home. (Back in high school, I was actually able to briefly shut up an obnoxious lefty classmate by "calling him out" on his use of the phrase "trailer trash" by pointing out that I was an example of such.) That is, aside from the times we were living in a house my parents built themselves out in the Alaska bush, with no electricity, no running water, no sewer or septic, a woodstove for heat and cooking, and so on.
I've been a supporter of Alaska seceding from the US since 4th grade. I'm a monarchist who thinks the "Founding Fathers" were vile traitors. I think that Neema Parvini is right that the threat to Western Civilization is the continued existence of the United States.
Alaskan monarchist? Yeah, I'm thinking based
So are you an Anglophile? How did you come about to becoming a monarchist?
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I'm with you on all the other stuff, and I would be with you on this one if in practice we only ran the obscene deficits during incidents of particular need punctuating longer periods of fiscal responsibility, but the fraction of fiscally responsible leaders in either tribe is a rounding error. Carefully-dosed limited-time opioid prescriptions are useful for acute injuries, but if someone's heroin addiction has gotten too bad for them to go cold-turkey and they're increasing their doses exponentially to make up for the diminishing returns, you don't praise their easy access to dealers.
I'm not saying the defects are smart or wisely spent (they're not!)
But the fact you get to have them at all is a massive form of economic stimulus that benefits the people of America in the short run
I guess they're at least an opportunity, even if one that's been squandered at best and backfired at worst.
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That means letting your enemies possess a superweapon
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