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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   18418 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 29, 2024

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Ilhan Omar speaks to her own people, in her own language, and she is getting blasted for it.

The video itself, from what I think is the most original source I could find.

The headlines I've collected:

Ilhan Omar Deportation Calls Grow From Republicans

'Squad' member grilled for remarks about allegiance: 'Somalians first, Muslims second'

Rep. Ilhan Omar Faces Backlash on Social Media Following Viral Speech on Somalia

From her own, preferred, translation:

We Somalis are people who love each other. It is possible that some of us are rough with each other, but when the going gets tough, we are people who have each other’s backs. We are sisters and brothers, supporting each other, people who know they are Somalis and Muslims, coming to each other’s aid and aiding their brothers and sisters.

And the other day, when we heard that some Somalis, or those who say they are Somalis, entered an MoU with Ethiopia, many people called me and said, “Ilhan, you should talk to the US government; what is the US government going to do about this?”

My response was: the US government will do what we ask it to do. We should have this confidence in ourselves as Somalis. We live in this country. We are taxpayers in this country. This country is one where one of your daughters sits in Congress. While I am in Congress, no one will take Somalia’s sea. The United States will not back others to rob us. So, do not lose sleep over that, O Minnesotans. The lady you sent to Congress is on this, and she is as cognizant of this interest as you are.

I would like to tell President Hassan Sheikh that we are impressed with the great work you have done. You have made it known to those living in Somalia and other places that, in spite of the many challenges we face as Somalis, we are nonetheless competent people. People who believe in their country and will not allow it to be endangered.

Thus, I want to congratulate the Somalis in Minnesota and everywhere on how united you are. How you all stood by our president, because he needs our solidarity. Somalia belongs to all Somalis. Somalia is one. We are brothers and sisters, and our land will not be balkanized. Our lands were taken from us before, and God willing, we may one day seek them, but what we have now will not be balkanized.

I thank you all for how you always welcome me and honor me; may the Lord honor you. Peace and blessings of God be with you.

Nothing here is news to me. I also think Omar should be expelled from Congress and deported, but that's because she's committed immigration fraud to bring her brother into the US by posing as his wife. It's always been obvious to me that she's simply not American, will never be American, and can never be American. She's Somali, and here, in her native tongue, talking to her coethnics, she admits as much. Look at her preferred translation again, and consider who she lumps herself with.

We Somalis are people who love each other.

We are sisters and brothers, supporting each other, people who know they are Somalis and Muslims, coming to each other’s aid and aiding their brothers and sisters.

This is the part that has been translated into Somalis first, Muslims second, and Americans not at all (emphasis mine). She does, eventually, say Minnesotans:

So, do not lose sleep over that, O Minnesotans. The lady you sent to Congress is on this, and she is as cognizant of this interest as you are.

The video subtitles do not translate Minnesota, but it's clearly recognizable (sounds like "rare minnesoto" at ~1:38).

You have made it known to those living in Somalia and other places that, in spite of the many challenges we face as Somalis, we are nonetheless competent people.

Somalia belongs to all Somalis. Somalia is one. We are brothers and sisters, and our land will not be balkanized. Our lands were taken from us before, and God willing, we may one day seek them, but what we have now will not be balkanized.

The "brothers and sisters" refers to Somali muslims, not the Scandinavian or German ethnics who have been in Minnesota for generations, those who are being replaced by Omar and her ilk. Not the yankees who moved west from New York and Pennsylvania. Solidarity is for blacks and muslims, not whites, not Americans.

I'm not trying to hide my biases here. I've long thought it obvious that this woman was a foreign agent, representing foreigners in the US congress at the expense of Americans. That offends me deeply. I can't even call her disloyal, because she's very clearly loyal to who she considers her own. I'm glad more people are noticing, and I hope that she is punished for her misdeeds eventually. I simply wish I could say, America for the Americans, our lands will not be taken from us, but I unfortunately that sentiment is only available for foreigners.

Hopefully Tlaib is next.

Do you have that same energy for the US congressman Brian Mast who wore his IDF uniform to Congress and said

“As the only member to serve with both the United States Army and the Israel Defense Forces, I will always stand with Israel,” Mast wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, alongside several photos of him wearing the uniform Friday.

and then:

“Tlaib’s got her flag. I got my uniform,” Mast wrote. “’Global Day of Rage’ my ass.”

Someone like this, along with the Israel lobby, is much more likely to hurt the US and get it into stupid foreign entanglements because of hi dual loyalty than anyone in the Squad.

While I consider all dual citizenship objectionable, and would lightly call for the deportation of all such peoples to their other place of citizenship (excepting those who's other countries would not allow them to renounce) Israel should be at the bottom of any such lists. They would, literally, be my last priority. Their concerns are legitimate. I think there is a major political party in America that is on track to seek their extinction as a race. So, yeah, when we have rid ourselves of the dual loyalty Mexican, Somali, Canadian, Chinese, and other X-Americans, we can deal with the Israeli problem. But I doubt we will have much such problems when all those others are sent away.

  • -12

Israel is the first priority. Israel spies on America and sells its secrets. It also lobbies the US to fight its wars and give it money. If Israel isn't the first priority then this whole thing is pointless. There's nobody from Taiwan or China in the US government doing this. I don't want to hear this argument until all Israeli first sympathizers are expelled from America and stripped of their citizenship. And that includes Americans like Sheldon Adelson.

It's 100% true that Israel spies on the United States, but this is very normal (for example, the US was caught spying on Germany, and France is apparently notorious for running SIGINT collections at international military exercises) in international relations. FVEYS might be the one group in the world that actually doesn't spy on each other.

And it's 100% not true that China or Taiwan isn't lobbying (Taiwan definitely does) or spying on it (China definitely does).

(A historical aside, but I am not sure anything Israel has done has been as consequential as the coordinated British effort, which included espionage, to get us into the World Wars. The Zimmerman note would never have come to light if it was not for British espionage on US diplomatic traffic.)

FVEYS might be the one group in the world that actually doesn't spy on each other.

I thought this was known to be false, as another layer of end-run around restrictions on SIGINT against citizens? If eg MI6 spies on an American citizen on American soil and relays it to NSA with the expectation of reciprocation, it's not NSA doing the spying, and therefore totally in the clear.

I'm not talking about lobbying. I'm talking about Zionist Jews (sometimes with Israeli citizenship) serving in the US government at the highest levels. There is nobody like that for China yet there are who knows how many people like this for Israel. It's no shock that the largest recipient of foreign aid and the next biggest ones are the countries that recognize it. And we're not talking about just spying. What Israel does is leagues beyond that including selling secrets to its enemies. Israel and Jews are so far beyond what any other country does that it's not even comparable. So I don't even want to hear about The Squad until Israel is dealt with. Zionist Jews could start WW3, while Ilhan would just get the US in some entanglement in Africa that doesn't really matter. I think you could make a serious argument that Zionist Jews in the US government are literally the biggest threat to world peace.

When you make inflammatory claims, you need to bring evidence. “Could,” “would,” “who knows”—elaborate on these, and use them to make it clear why you stand by your claims.

FVEYS might be the one group in the world that actually doesn't spy on each other.

I would bet against that, except there's no way to resolve the bet. I'm sure all countries involved attempt to get intelligence beyond the scope of the agreement, one way or another.

I alluded to that same point regarding Israel vs. US interests/American people with a conservative on Twitter named Katya Sedgwick (who I interviewed a while back partially in the topic of the Ukraine proxy war, which we were both against, but October 7th has put us at odds).

The argument of cultural affinity and geopolitical good sense was the answer I got, to differentiate Israel/Jews vs. Somalia/Muslims. Highly questionable in my opinion, both as far as blowback and a Jewish ethnostate not particularly resonating with Americans on the ground nor their interests.

I think that, the US not being an ethnostate, given the levels of functionality being present, comparatively, in Somali and Jewish culture is a valid basis for comparison. Unassimilated Jews I have no more beef with than assimilated Jews(assuming the welfare queens are excluded from consideration); Somalis are a different story.

And an ethnostate America on a factual basis is not, and hasn't been since like 1830 at the latest. Poorly assimilated minorities are simply part of the American experience; it's fair to discriminate among those minorities, and for deleterious effects on American interests levy criticism, but on the whole having people that speak two languages at home and practice old country folkways is the rule in American history, not the exception.

Everything I said about Omar could also be said about Mast, or Schumer. I think anyone who holds two passports should be ineligible to serve in any branch of any state or federal government, and I'm leaning towards county and municipal government, too. I have no patience for dual loyalties and no shame about it. What you linked was two foreigners arguing about their foreign lands, and I, an American, don't care about anything east of Greenland, west of Alaska, or South of Darien. Neither one of them should be in Congress.

Hell, I think you shouldn't be able to vote at all unless you've been in the country for 18 years, and the only reason I say 18 and not 21 is because the constitution is too difficult to amend. I think you shouldn't even be able to vote when you move states!

But I didn't want to start a thread about the perfidy of the Jews and the influence of AIPAC. I certainly could, but I didn't. I don't consider them American any more than I do anyone else who holds a hyphen.

I would just like to note for the record here that in Australia, it's unconstitutional for dual-citizens to serve in Federal Parliament (there's a minor exception in case of people who've attempted to formally renounce their foreign citizenship and failed; some countries don't allow renunciation of citizenship).

For the curious, there was a mild parliamentary crisis about that a few years back - hilariously, it turned out that a significant number of sitting MPs were dual citizens and had just forgotten about it, because no one remembers or checks that.

That said, I feel that it's worth clarifying that the Australian provision here is only for MPs and the radical isolationism that KMC seems to recommend is a fair distance away from that. If nothing else, not caring about anything outside of America's borders seems like a recipe for disaster for America itself.

According to Wiki, he lost his legs while serving in the US military in Afghanistan in 2010, and then volunteered in Israel (presumably not in a combat capacity) several years later. It’s not a good look, but he at least has dual loyalty!

Some people don't even serve one country, and this guy serves two?

Do you have that same energy for the US congressman Brian Mast who wore his IDF uniform to Congress and said

I'll say this: if you are a dual citizen, you should not be able to serve in congress, and probably shouldn't be able to serve in any role whatsoever in government including police. I'll even go so far as to say that only natural born US citizens should be able to serve in congress.

Re the first one, does this extend to cases where someone's a dual citizen due to essentially not being able to get rid of their second citizenship? Dual citizenships have been a bit of a topic in Finland in the recent years since the most common dual citizenship is Russian but, for instance, I have a friend who has such a dual citizenship and would like to get rid of it but essentially can't, since he'd have to physically go to Russia for that and there's a high chance he'd get punished for such an attempt, particularly since he's been a vocal opponent of Putin's policies and they might as well just go and forcibly draft him and throw him at the front.

The way Australia rules this is that if you've made a good-faith attempt to renounce foreign citizenship then you count as being only an Australian as far as Australia's concerned (and thus can be elected to Parliament). There are, after all, some countries that do not allow renunciation at all.

Re the first one, does this extend to cases where someone's a dual citizen due to essentially not being able to get rid of their second citizenship?

Yes. There are many jobs that your friend would still be eligible for.

The bounds of this are interesting. Let's say I'm an absolute dictator in a brand new country in western asia (some breakaway province that it's convenient for the rest of the world to recognize), let's call it Trollistan. Can I keep people unfriendly to me out of your government by declaring them citizens and then not allowing them to revoke the citizenship?

If not, why? If it's because they didn't chose Trollistan, it doesn't seem that different than someone being born somewhere (which they don't chose), and then not being allowed to give the citizenship up later.

Do you really see no difference between:

  • Has never been to a place.

  • Was born in a place, was a citizen of a place, eventually left the place and went to another place and went through the process of becoming a citizen of that second, new place where they weren't born

?

I see a difference in that. But that's not what we're talking about here, considering natural born citizenship generally passes from parents to children, not only to people that are born in a place. Being born in a place automatically conferring citizenship is kind of a new world thing, most places in the old world don't do that (source)

In the current world, you can be a citizen of a place you've never been to already. And you can be incapable of giving up that citizenship. And that doesn't seem to be an exception for you, so I'm not sure why it's an important difference here.

The relevant difference is:

  • Place your family has history
  • Place your family doesn't have history

If that's not the relevant difference, I think you need to start carving out some exemptions to your policy.

By that reasoning it's fine to bar him from taking part in any job whose name starts with the letters Q through Z. After all, even with that restriction there are many jobs he could take.

But it's totally arbitrary. Why do we have an interest in preventing someone from taking some jobs just because they refuse to put themselves in physical danger by going to Russia?

The government by its nature exerts power over me. It takes my money (by force), and implements behavioral prescriptions that it enforces with violence.

That's different than most jobs, and because of that different scrutiny should be applied to the people being entrusted with that power. I'm sorry your friend really wants to have that power but can't, but honestly in this scenario I am going to start wondering why they want the power that badly.

but honestly in this scenario I am going to start wondering why they want the power that badly.

Probably for the same reason they'd want a job that starts with the letters Q through Z: because you need to have a job to live, and you're better off when a big chunk of the possible jobs aren't automatically barred from you in advance. Expecting someone to go to Russia to be jailed or drafted, before you'd hire them, is unreasonable.

What country are you in? Your friend has also chosen to eliminate themselves from all of the jobs in India by not moving to India and trying to get a job there, presumably. Why, if this is just a matter of increasing the possible number of jobs available, do they not do that?

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Would it be ok to ban say Christians from offices of state power? It's an easy claim that their loyalty is to God before country. And if they complain, well why do they want power so badly?

Nations are by default nationalistic and self interested. Your religion is orthogonal to your nationality.

Do I think a muslim should be allowed to be the Pope? Similarly no.

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What a brilliant idea. Perhaps offices of state power should strive to resemble /r/antiwork's mod team.

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