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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.
A GOP candidate could probably tread out a policy platform that mostly bridges the gap between the idea of libertarianism for adults but paternalism for children by focusing in on the family unit as a core, fundamental, and necessary component of the nation's future success, on a purely pragmatic level, rather than falling back to religious arguments. And thus government is as a purely practical matter going to treat family formation and the creation and raising of children as paramount matters of concern (the Constitution says "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" after all), while ultimately leaving any person who opts not to form such families alone.
That is, with a looming demographics crisis, the only way that there is a guaranteed future for the country is kids, who will go on to raise their own kids, etc.
So pushing Marriage to the forefront as a fundamental social institution again, and creating a legal framework for giving [married] people who produce AND raise children incentives, protections, and stability to bolster their social status and social capital. AND emphasizing that it is not the job of teachers, bureaucrats, or pundits to instill values in the children, and thus there should be near-zero tolerance for parties that interfere in that relationship between parent and child, doubly so if they hold positions of trust bestowed upon them by government. And in exchange, marriages are harder to unilaterally terminate.
This leaves a gaping hole as to WHAT values 'ought' to be instilled in children, and at least requires us to ask if there are any values that emphatically should not be instilled in children.
But for my purposes, I'm happy to say that parents should have the ability to raise their kids according to the values the parents, themselves, support AND ALSO that kids shouldn't be undergoing irreversible procedures that they lack the philosophical and psychological ability to consent to, even if they're given legal ability to consent.
A hard line drawn in the sand, "leave the kids alone" but also "leave the gays alone, too!" is probably enough to build a winning national coalition on, conditional on all the other policies that get clustered in. Especially if backed by the well-founded premise that "children raised in intact biological families universally have better outcomes" and therefore the good of the children is best achieved by privileging intact families.
And here's the more wacky proposal that might ruin the ability to build a coalition, but might be key to making this whole thing work:
I think that rather than a blanket age at which someone transitions to adulthood and is emancipated from their parents... there should be some kind of more literal rite of passage (not literally this one, mind) that, upon completion, triggers said emancipation. So children who are precocious and 'ready' for adulthood earlier can get their freedom, and those who are, let us say, "stunted" may remain the ward of their parents for several additional years, possibly into their early twenties.
And parents, as part of that legal framework mentioned above, will be given various legal privileges based on how many children they raise who successfully achieve emancipation.
This would give the parents some additional incentive to actively prepare their children to become independent adults, but also ensure that kids who aren't really ready are kept under a watchful, protective eye a bit longer. I think there are a number of goals this achieves, but one is that it does help prevent the risk of 'grooming' wherein older adults will target immature teens who are on the cusp of reaching the age of consent by exploiting their immaturity, since now the legality of having sex with them is no longer based on them hitting an arbitrary date.
I dunno, the whole issue is that the changes that will actually work almost certainly have to come as a package, and it would be hard for a GOP candidate to achieve that whole package without a 'mandate' from the voters and the will to stand ground, so it is probably more than can be achieved in a single term or even two terms.
Any suggestions? One of the few things I can think of that satisfies being challenging, demonstrating (limited, for the naysayers) competence and is broadly recognised as (again for the naysayers, largely) legitimate is military or some comparable form of national service. But last time that idea was floated at the old place it was dismissed as being literal slavery (beside the objection that the army and every other profession doesn't want them). Which, hyperbole aside, is admittedly a problem: How can you place demands on a populace under threat of withholding rights and still call yourselves defenders of freedom? Whichever way you look at it it boils down to a state-to-citizen quid pro quo.
The trouble is for it to hold any significance it must impart a cost, and even if the benefits outweigh the costs people will still bristle at the need for any measure of sacrifice.
Pilgrimage? Mortification? Or something altogether more milquetoast like graduating high school, which many here are just as eager to condemn as little different from slavery and imprisonment. Or how about tying it to your first point and make it necessary to have raised a child who graduates high school? Three birds with one stone!
At the broadest, I could see there being some set of standardized tests that try to capture the would-be adults' actual understanding of the world and the implications of entering certain kinds of contracts and relationships. Do they understand how compound interest works? Do they get that sexual activity can lead to pregnancies, STDs, and emotional entanglement? And do they have enough understanding of their own biology to get that certain medical procedures are irreversible and certain drugs are inherently addictive and 'harmful?' If they meet some threshold of understanding, then they get their official 'adulting license' and can be permitted to enter the world as an independent individual.
This is basically how we handle driver's licenses, just expanded out to other privileges of adulthood.
This is, broadly speaking, how we could tell that someone possesses the psychological prerequisites to engage with other 'adults' as equals and can truly consent to various contracts that they'll be entering into.
Now, in an ideal world, "graduated from high school" SHOULD be sufficient to qualify someone as a Level One Adult. I don't think I need to argue the point that it is, demonstrably, NOT enough to prep someone for adulthood in the modern world.
I do think there would need to be some practical/skills based element to it. The thing I like about the Ant-Glove test in that link I posted is it directly checks the mental fortitude of the person subjected to it. Can they endure extreme discomfort without complaint or having a complete mental breakdown. Babies will cry at the slightest feeling of pain. Adults can endure hours of suffering if they believe it will improve their lives or their children's lives.
So what sort of tests are there that someone who is mentally stable and mature would pass handily, but would tend to filter out those who are unable to control their emotions and are repelled by discomfort and are too impulsive to endure painful experiences for later rewards?
Based on my personal preferences, I might suggest some kind of demonstration of martial prowess. Fight 10 different guys in a row, five minutes per round, with 5 minutes of rest in between each round. No need to win, just prove you can push through pain and discomfort and can at least keep your damn hands up by the end of it.
... funny enough there's an element of sense to this, with the argument being that one doesn't fully understand what it means to be an adult until you've been on both sides of the child-rearing equation.
Despite not being a parent myself I have a solid sympathy with the idea that you're not really eligible for real grown up status until you're a parent. The difficulty is that making parenthood the benchmark is that it would accord a teenage single mum higher status than a childless man like myself while incentivising the creation of yet more teenage single mums, so I added the educational criteria to tilt the balance back to a range of more long term pro-social outcomes (promoting stable relationships, increased fertility rates, parental responsibility/discipline). Totally unworkable in practice anyway as it would never get support, people would be anywhere between their 30s up to their 70s or even 80s before they were granted status.
It's a reasonable idea, definitely more feasible, but that's 100 minutes in total. By the 10th fresh opponent you'd be a sitting duck, especially if they're preparing/prepared for the same trial. Presumably the guys in question are your peers? Seems unfair to fight older or younger opponents. Then again maybe participating as one of a younger-than cohort of opponents would be good preparation and pre-qualification for the initiation and act to rebalance the advantages.
I think I would have understood enough on an intellectual level to have passed such a test at age 13 and then promptly spent the next ten years learning the same lessons the hard way. Analysing it at a remove isn't like knowing it in your bones the way you do after you've been through it, so I think the tests would have to embody a strong practical element somehow.
In my mind, it's 10 opponents who have already qualified for 'adulthood' and thus know how to pull their punches and know exactly what it is like being on the other end of this treatment.
Yes, and that is part of the point. To be exhausted, bruised, hurting (hopefully not actually injured) and barely able to move, and then to have to dig deep and fight on anyhow.
The lesson being that sometimes life is just not fair and when you don't want to go on, quitting is certainly an option (indeed, you can withdraw from the gauntlet at any time you want!) but it won't solve your problems and certainly won't be rewarded.
Yes, the policies would almost certainly have to be introduced as a full package of changes in order to work, and there will be second-order/unintended effects.
Just have to make it clear that the goal is more intact families and more well-developed children.
So, in your ideal society, instead of waiting till 18, to "become adult" everyone must pass some test, whether memorizing and parrotting some stuff, or Thunderdome fight?
So, when I do not qualify, when I just do not go to such tests or fail every time, I am permanent child, I am baby till I die?
This is not so bad. While you adults have to work, I can stay home and play video games and my parents have to care for me. You cannot throw a baby to the street, after all.
Looks rather awesome.
Playing games all life is boring? No problem. I join with my friends, all perma children like me, we go outside and have fun. When our fun gets us arrested? You cannot put us in prison, we are lil widdle babies!
Looks even more awesome.
This is general problem with all people who propose new laws and regulations, whose answer to every problem is: "There should be law" "This should be banned" - these people are generally law abiding and cannot imagine how criminals think, do not ever bother to think "how would criminal, whether simple street thug or smart scammer and con man, exploit this law and used it for his benefit".
Are people who enjoy fights and brawls, who are used to dishing and receiving beating, better and more responsible citizens with stronger families?
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This just sounds like Russian army hazing but formalized. I'm not convinced that they'll be particularly inclined to do anything like "pull their punches". Instead, the average instinct is to get the new guy to suffer at least as much as you did, which naturally results in decreasing restraint over time.
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