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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   29159 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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The Left -- that is, the mass of men and women who are in control of nearly every relevant channel of Western power and influence

To the extent that this is not just a tautological redefinition of "the left", this strikes me as factually inaccurate. The right of center has significant support among the the police, military, non traditional media, and a large minority of traditional media. Republicans routinely win ~50% of elections at all levels, a supreme court in their favor. A majority of high-wealth individuals are Republican.

The good advice in this post is for Hanania to be honest with himself and his beliefs. It is a virtue to courageously stand up and truthfully say "yes I believed this, but here is why I changed my mind" or "I used to believe this; I still do but I used to, too". It is obviously cowardly and expedient to apologize if he does actually hold those convictions.

On the other hand, large swaths of this post are deeply uncharitable and indistinguishable from a self-fulling siege-mentality worldview (which may or may not be in accordance with reality). Many leftists have an exactly symmetric but opposite narrative, just as passionately and deeply held. I suppose you can both be right, but you both can't have the moral high ground.

The right of center has significant support among the the police, military, non traditional media, and a large minority of traditional media. Republicans routinely win ~50% of elections at all levels, a supreme court in their favor. A majority of high-wealth individuals are Republican.

The police in cities and the military are both controlled by the left; only the lower ranks are otherwise.

So? The police in smaller municipalities aren't.

The military is controlled by the commander in chief, the sec-def and the combatant commanders which are political appointees.

The military is controlled by the commander in chief, the sec-def and the combatant commanders which are political appointees.

As was demonstrated in at least two incidents under Trump (Afghanistan and refusal to quell the DC BLM riots), the deep state has more control than this would imply.

Historically security apparati have sided with whoever the lower to mid ranking officers have supported in the event of civil strife, not with who the top brass threw in with. For a recent example, Niger’s new President is a captain, not a general. Police departments are constrained by the opinions of the sergeants and lieutenants at least as much as by the chiefs. And according to people that are in the military, the military is in practice a lot less woke than it tries to come off as because the captains and majors aren’t on board.

Historically security apparati have sided with whoever the lower to mid ranking officers have supported in the event of civil strife

This is just selection bias. When the military stayed loyal, there was no civil strife.

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