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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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Hannania, Iowa State Fair, and Vivek. Vivek’s response to LGBTQ made the rounds on twitter mostly with positive support on how it can be handled.

https://twitter.com/richardhanania/status/1690890371398836224?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ

Vivek says a lot of words but if I had to summarize it’s basically libertarianism for adults - you can do what you want - but no pride for kids and restrictions on female sports and bathroom usage.

I use to share these type of opinions and perhaps I still do. But I no longer find these as stable positions. It comes down to well why don’t you want pride in schools? It’s because I believe in social contagion (and the broad right) that pride is bad and I don’t want the next generation of children to be more gay and transexual. Basically I don’t want grooming for those lifestyles. I think the left knows this. And won’t settle for the right thinking pride is bad. And then it’s well your a homophobe/transphobe. Masks off yea I am. That is why I don’t want pride in school because I think it’s bad for people.

Of course I think the same problem exists with Hannania’s new position on race. Treat everyone the same. Be tough on crime. Do I think being colorblind will be accepted by the left when it ends up with whites always on top and blacks on the bottom with a lot of black men in prison? No.

I feel like we have discussed these issues a lot. Even a mod thru in a post on why can’t we just be colorblind (perhaps bad summary from memory). I think it’s interesting seeing the third leading GOP candidate making similar arguments. And in all honesty my guess is Vivek’s position is likely the preferred position of mosts on the Motte. None of the pride everywhere but adults can do as they please. The race issues I think perhaps we could get back to the old equilibrium of ignoring disparate outcomes and just treating blacks as if they are white. But I doubt it. The Pride issues I think are harder because not wanting children exposed more directly says we think it’s bad and don’t want our children taught this stuff. The positions I’m laying out are likely the preferred position of most of the GOP establishment. I think Desantis would even accept these positions if offered. I don’t expect the left to offer these compromises because they are true believers that disparate outcomes are proof of racism or because a lot of supporters find the moral superiority of getting to call red tribe “your a racists/transphobe” etc enjoyable so no reason to stop.

While I think these positions are unstable I’m not sure the right could move the country to the stable positions. Which would be widespread knowledge that a great deal of disparate outcome is from hbd and on pride matters getting the country to agree that lgbtq lifestyles are not desirable (which was the world pre-2008). As it is the current positions seem unstable to me and easily attacked by the left and to a great extent makes the right look like hypocrites afraid to say the quiet part out loud.

Also, might be a good place for anyone to posts anything they found interesting at the Iowa State Fair.

Just going to throw this out as a tangent. Looks like Argentinas likely next President will be a far-right libertarian Trump supporter wanting to dollarize.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/08/argentina-update-canine-mastiff-edition.html

Seems like a lot of libertarian talk going on so feels like it’s connected.

Edit: asked an ex from Argentina what she thought about him. She said her age group has a saying

“Of course! There’s a saying among my generation Milei or EZE”

I fundamentally don't understand the right in latin America. Why does it like the US? Latin Americans aren't exactly leading in the field of woke-ideology. More woke ideology has been produced on single American college campuses than much of the rest of the world. Do they think they are getting their based right wing state together with Victoria Nuland and Kamala Harris? Pro dollarization means pro wall street. How right wing will they be selling out their country to foreign financial interests that want everything ESG-rated?

I am all the way to the right. However, in Latin America6o I consistently find myself supporting leftist parties. They don't want their natural resources sold off to foreigners or their country turned into a banana republic, and in general they seem far less interested in hanging out with the elites in the wokest country on the planet.

The right in Argentina has elected a world economic forum banker. While he might anger some feminists on twitter it is clear where Argentina is heading.

Why does it like the US?

Because the United States rocks. It's super rich, there's massive opportunity for people from all sorts of backgrounds, and people that aren't jaded often do still view it as the land of opportunity. Throw in some Chicago Boys influence and you're going to have some people that are enthusiastic about economics that gets called "right-wing" in some circles.

The US has destroyed latin American countries, sucked resources out of them and bullied them for a century. Pretty much every awful social trend comes from the US.

The US has destroyed latin American countries, sucked resources out of them and bullied them for a century.

No, it hasn't. This is loser ideology. "Nothing is our fault, we are the victims of history".

I will concede that resource extraction tends to be bad for a country's economic development. But there is no alternate history where Latin American countries like Cuba, Argentina, or Venezuela become economic powerhouses on the basis of their homegrown human resources.

Like nearly all countries, Latin American countries are best off when they import the technological advances of the United States without fucking it up too much with their own corruption, socialism, and zero sum thinking.