domain:moultano.wordpress.com
roystgnr
4hr ago
Jones also dealt with a ludicrous speeding ticket
A reckless driving charge, specifically. 116mph isn't the level at which you get a fine; it's jail time.
For bonus points, Jones specifically demanded that a police officer be booted after donating to Kyle Rittenhouse's defense fund. To be fair, this dropped on a Friday, and perhaps the other VA Democratic party is just working up to slapping him down. To be less charitable, the Dem governor candidate's released a statement demanding 'responsibility' rather than 'resignation' or, to drop the alliteration, leaving the race, and some local Dems and orgs are just more full-throated in support; it doesn't take a Cassandra to know where this is going.
Both Jones and Spanberger has more than a fair share of past scandals (Jones also dealt with a ludicrous speeding ticket by getting 500 hours of community service... which he served with his own PAC), they 'only' had a significant but not insurmountable lead in the last polls (for whatever giant grain of salt you want to take those with), and their opponents are pretty boring milquetoast conservatives. It's possible they'll have put forward their best efforts toward losing, and will somehow manage it for Jones.
But I'm not optimistic, and perhaps more damning, very few people on the Dem side of the branch is treating this like even a purely-political five-alarm fire. Just like Omhar avoiding censure where Gosar ate one, we have past examples of how politicians react to truly disqualifying acts by one of their compatriots being dropped too late in the race to replace them. This ain't it, bub.
One could argue attorneys general don't 'really' matter. But we have examples of elected Democratic officials dropping charges in cases with literal video evidence; there are recent situations where Virginia specifically needed and didn't have a chief law enforcement officer willing to cauterize out endemic tolerance of serious crimes.
But, yeah, the pattern's continuing, falcon gyre yada yada. It's not just The Algorithm when it shows up in random who's who of this very community and gets directly sent from one politician to another, it's not nutpicking when it walks up to you at work, it's not just some rando on the internet when it's a big part of the communities you wanted to spend your time in or the big names in industries you wanted to get involved with.
TK-421
4hr ago
I hesitate to post this because I do think that those comments are the kind of background, "I hate the outgroup" signaling that you can find everywhere every day among every group. This man isn't going to commit violence against anyone. Give him a gun, a bag of candy, and unfettered access to those kids and the worst you'll get are some tummy aches.
Are the background vibes concerning? Is it perhaps bad to forget the humanity of your political opponents and openly hope for their death? Sure, yeah, but that's been the reality of our political vibes off and on since 1776.
But that's only one shoe, now the other. I live in a deep blue state, deep enough that some variation on "Trump is bad / kill the fascists" has become an almost ritualized part of conversation. Yesterday, I suddenly discovered myself in the middle of a tiff with my mid 30s lady friend. The cause? Your normal his and hers problems: she wants to start stockpiling bombs to use against the fascist menace, I do not.
Now, I don't think she would really be in the vanguard of revolutionary resistance or otherwise commit illegal violence. She is also only a single point of data, floating freely on the breeze of the zeitgeist. But our discussion has obviously been on my mind and gelled with the comments from Jones even though his were from 2022.
Committing violence, harming people - actually doing these kinds of things are, or seem to me, to still be outside the Overton Window. When done they are done by crazies. Verbally supporting violence or hurting people in the abstract are very much inside the Overton Window. Very normal, average people will talk like they're members of the Jacobin Club. It's just a status game. There's a schlubby, 60 year old white guy I know whose face will light up when he can turn even the most unrelated topic to Trump's latest outrage because people like bashing Trump and there's very little otherwise he says or does that people like. It's that simple.
And, to be fair, I can recall similar-ish death wishes and curses upon their heads from my right wing family members.
Anyway, the last day has increased my belief that we'll see an increase in 70s style petty political violence fueled by combining low status, violent men who have not much to lose and a lot of getting laid to gain with ideologically mindkilled women. But that's as far as it'll go.
Comparing Reddit to some 4chan offshoot is played out at this point. I am bothered that toxicity from the Left gets a nice mainstream pasture to jerk themselves off day and night with tacit mainstream approval while milquetoast Right wingers get left with condemned self-hosted shitholes or bust.
We've seen how the Left reacts to 'bad speak' where no slurs or threats are even deployed. And the entire neurotic hammer-dropping process has been completely absent here as it was with Kirk.
You want to compare this to a chan schizoid going off on gassing the Jews? Okay. I'll grant that an apples to apples comparison leaves the virulent antisemite looking worse. But this phenomenon where Reddit discourse gets pass after pass? Yeah, I think thats more concerning and even dangerous.
Is Reddit representative of the Left? Not entirely, but it represents a mindset that is quite alive and well over there. And its one I've detected enough IRL that I no longer consider this 'a random internet opinion'. Meanwhile, I know zero people that express chan bile unless they have the good sense to leave that on the net.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
4hr ago
But you have an example to set, and the example shouldn't be "Goes for immediate gratification at a second's notice." or "Turns into a drooling zombie two hundred times a day.". Either do something with the kid, or at least do something useful that the child does well to observe.
I think this is underappreciated for many. Monkey see, monkey do is a real thing, and if kids see their parents all day on their phone at every available opportunity, what are the kids going to want to do? No wonder the kids are all screen addicts (as if the screens themselves weren't addictive enough).
roystgnr
4hr ago
it's absence from these screenshots is weird if he did in fact say that.
"Coyner’s alarm at her former colleague’s violent rhetoric toward Gilbert prompted Jones to call her and explain his reasoning over the phone, a source familiar with the exchange told NR.
According to the source, the Democratic former legislator doubled down on the call, saying the only way public policy changes is when policymakers feel pain themselves, like the pain that parents feel when they watch their children die from gun violence. He asked her to provide counterexamples to disprove his claim.
Then at one point, the source said, he suggested he wished Gilbert’s wife could watch her own child die in her arms so that Gilbert might reconsider his political views, prompting Coyner to hang up the phone in disgust."
daguerrean
4hr ago
If there is one thing I fault Trump for most, more than any specific governing actions, it is erosion of norms. I'm not trying to excuse this latest development of mainstream Democrats on Reddit openly proclaiming their support for murder, but in my estimation this is just the latest in a long series of escalations and norms being discarded.
I didn't really appreciate it at the time, but I think Trump's general style in 2016 was a big part of this, penis size jokes in the primary, comments about imprisoning Hillary, insulting nicknames for his opponents, a general crassness and lack of concern over scandals. I think the Democrats have been a long time learning the lessons from 2016 Trump, that any norm can be discarded if you have popular support to do so. Accusations of sexism are not actually magic spells and can simply be laughed off if enough of the populace is willing to laugh along with you. Trump's quote about shooting somebody on Fifth Avenue seems more and more prescient daily.
Of course you can trace back the norm violations further than Trump, I'm not trying to say he started this, but I believe any fair assessment would regard Trump as a massive demonstration of the powerlessness of norms in the face of voters that no longer care about them. And to be fair, we still haven't really seen a Democrat Trump, meaning a President-level Democrat that absolutely revels in upsetting the other side and breaking norms left and right. It troubles me to think what that would look like, maybe Ilhan Omar if she were the President.
birb_cromble
4hr ago
It's not uncommon for people around me to fail to notice that I'm less left wing than they are. Even if they do notice, they adopt a mindset that I'm "one of the good ones", like I'm some sort of vaguely civilized savage who won't cause any problems.
As a result, I've heard a lot about how me, my family, and people like me should all die. Usually it's in the context of COVID, but there are quite a few other reasons as well.
The part that really seems to turn their crank is the idea that Us Dumb, Ignorant, Cousin-Fucking, Science Denying Rednecks will have a moment of clarity at the Apex of our suffering and cry out to them for help in the moments before our agonizing demise. Something about the idea of self-inflicted suffering seems to absolve them of any sin associated with finding pleasure in the suffering of others.
What's interesting to me about this fellow from Virginia is twofold: first, he's a professional politician. I expect professional politicians to be sociopaths, but acting skills and a carefully cultivated persona are basic job qualifications. Did he not think this was going to leak? Did he not think it was a bad look? Or did he simply not think at all. I'm pretty sure I'd be fired if I wrote this and I'm not even a public figure.
The second part of this that's interesting is that it appears to be a much more active kind of desire than the desires of the University Set around me. They want to enjoy watching the life leak from my eyes as I plead for mercy from an unforgiving world, but they don't want to actually do it. Mr. Jones is a much more active kind of desire. Does it represent an escalation, or a difference in mindset between and adjunct professor and a prosecutor?
Totalitarianit
4hr ago
I don't think saying, "This person is guilty of a capital crime, in my opinion," is the same thing as calling for political violence. It's calling for the rule of law, and if the law says, "Sorry, this person isn't actually guilty of a capital crime," then there you go. Violence stops there.
I don't think it is either. There is a clear distinction. My problem with it is that we could probably comb through a lot of powerful American politicians' pasts or political decisions and establish a norm of executing them. That is a terrible precedent to establish in my opinion. I hate what Kamala Harris represents, but I would prefer even she not be executed after a shit presidency. I think something should probably be done about the Ilhan Omars of the Democrat party, but even martyring someone like her is bad long term strategy.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Candace Owens, Laura Loomer, etc. are all net negatives, but Republican strategists probably see them as tumors that have grown around an artery. You can't extract them without massive blood loss and death. I'm sure there's a similar sentiment for some Democrats about members of The Squad.
After this Trump presidency, I wonder what would happen if top leaders from both parties secretly met and agreed to expel some of their own members. I don't think the average American would cry themselves to sleep if The Squad was axed from the Democrat party and MTG, Lauren Boebert, Anna Paulina Luna, and Mary Miller were axed from the Republican party.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
4hr ago
He did literally open his post with "Yes, Democrats Really Do Want You Dead" complete with capitalized words and bolding.
I have read it, and in the just under 2 years since he posted it, red-tribers / white people aren't being pogrom'd as far as I can tell. There also isn't a mass emigration from the USA to other countries as red-tribers / white people escape random acts of violence.
making it clear you hate a class of people, through rhetoric and through occasional targeted violence.
When is this happening?
The 4 things he linked to in his comment above are:
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Israel / Palestine, which is a place with a very very long history of serious violence and war. Also notably not the USA.
-
A story about a place called "Rosedale" in Texas in the 1970s, which I guess is a cautionary tale but also, isn't very relevant to today?
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The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal, which is pretty fucked up and a huge black mark on progressives. But again it's pretty hard to spin this as a pogrom. Also not in the USA / has nothing to do with Democrats.
-
An article from "The Root" which is a trash website full of stupid people that write inflammatory shit for clicks. I am unhappy I just gave them a page view by clicking on this link.
I really don't find his argument convincing at all. Where is the contemporary USA evidence?
roystgnr
4hr ago
"You were talking about hopping jennifer Gilbert's children would die"
"Yes, I've told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy."
But to be fair, not only do we don't know why Jay Jones thought their 5 year old and 2 year old were "little fascists", we also don't know why their policies were bad enough that the children should die, and we don't know how he thinks the children's deaths should transpire. He should definitely publish every bit of missing context for his pro-dead-children stance so that we judge it as fairly as possible.
HermeneuticsOfVibes
4hr ago
I strongly disagree with laying blame on the Catholics, and I'd actually lay the fault at the feet of culture of the Chesapeake pointing fingers elsewhere. While you could view the Virginia and Maryland colonies as high trust through the eyes of the planter class (in their intereactions with members of the same class), it was absolutely a low trust, chaotic mess in every other regard, and much of modern American low trust culture has its roots here.
From the everpresent threat of rape looming over every woman by men of a higher class than her, to the significantly higher crime (and especially property crime) rate compared to the other colonies, to the absolute reverence for individual freedom (including the freedom to enslave), to the near worship of fortune and luck as a prognostication of God's general favor, to the gentry asserting themselves as arbiters of what messages the clergy can deliver, to the most popular lesiure activies of all classes and ages being the slaying of some sort of animal (in porportion to their rank in society), to prohibitions on education of both the slave and servant classes, to the ubiquity of class condescension, to the general preference for violence and permanent disfigurement as means of punishment for transgressions, the entire society was structured to create about as little trust as a highly decentralized society could ever managed.
Anyone of a higher class interacting with one of a lower had to rightly worry that they were dealing with a violent savage with a short fuse that could snap at any moment. Anyone of a lower class intereacting with one of a higher had to rightly fear that they'd be subject to any and all forms of abuse with no possible form of redress.
Another driving consideration is that of all the original colonies, the bay colony, and later the south as a whole, saw the largest geographic redistribution to the greater west of any of the original colonies, and largely brought their culture with them. In most cases of 19th century inland immigrant migration, the immigrants were moving to places already well tread by Anglican diaspora, and were subject to their existing practices. As elsewhere, the first settlers have a massive, disproportunate impact on the culture well beyond their size (as @quiet_NaN also correctly points out about the Quakers, who might have the greatest impact:population ratio of any American migrant wave).
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4hr ago
I've definitely heard of PTTE, and I dimly recall reading the first chapter. I'll give it another look, I've been running out of good things to read.
I would have guessed your comment was more of an allusion to Skyrim, from that speech by Paarthurnax where he questions whether it's better to have been born good, or to have overcome your evil nature through effort.
and at best straight up leave.
I guess I should have said "ethnic cleansing" instead of "genocide". Although frankly I kind of find the phrase "ethnic cleansing" to be a cop-out term governments use when they don't want to put boots on the ground somewhere that's looking real genocidal.
It kind of feels similar to the stupid word games of "its not racism against white people, it's just racial prejudice". Like congratulations, you (not you Whining Coil) made up a new word, you're still a massive asshole for being racially prejudiced/not intervening in the ethnic cleansing where children are being murdered.
Anyway, on pogroms, if my government was tacitly allowing low level violence against me and my people I'd feel rather genocided and would be absolutely attempting to leave immediately far away lest it get worse. Which then kind of makes it ethnic cleansing if I get the hell out of the area.
Arguably you see it already in many Democrat run cities.
What?
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
5hr ago
Like if the most antisemitic person you'd ever heard of tried to write a story about where the Jews came from, I'm not sure he'd do it any different.
The story of Jacob (re: him and Esau and him and his father) and him being the father of the 12 tribes of Israel is one of the most anti-Semitic things I've ever read.
srf0638
5hr ago
It's been like 2 years for me, I'll let you know if I ever figure it out. Admittedly I haven't gotten around to Hornblower. Mr Midshipman Easy was ok but not the same sort of thing at all.
Based on your other comment, Wodehouse might not be a million miles away from what you're looking for. Obviously lighter, but a good deal of the same spirit.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
5hr ago
I am a little dissatisfied with your implication that he probably didn't say anything bad about her kids
My assumption is that if he did, it would have leaked. As whoever leaked obviously wanted to damage his reputation, and that would me maximally reputation damaging. Therefore, if it existed, we'd be seeing it right now. The photos in that tweet are cropped and presented without timestamps, which is a deliberate choice. So if they're narrative shaping, why wouldn't they include it?
Fair points that it may be a follow up from a verbal conversation, but given the limited context presented to us I don't think I can jump to "he wants to hurt their kids".
I think there is enough to say this person should be canceled out of the political system entirely
Yes
the condemnations I'm seeing are not particularly strong
This is bad and embarrassing for Dems
the comments sections are justifying him, saying that he's far better than the opposing side
I've said my piece on the usefulness of internet comments. That said, republican politicians do have a shitty track record about saying fucked up shit about their out-groups, so to borrow a reddit phrase, "everyone here is the asshole".
As a concerned onlooker, I wish your country would stop flicking each other's nipples and wake the fuck up to the real issues, which are China, the coming wave of climate refuges, and the existing tidal wave of unstainable old people pensions.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5hr ago
A "member" of Annabel's? It is no more of a membership than my "membership" of American Express. They are subscribers with ideas above their station, and Annabel's is a commercial discotheque with ideas above its station.
oats_son
5hr ago
I am worried about this, just not "they're going to start rounding up red-tribers any day now" worried.
This, too, seems like it's a misunderstanding of @WhiningCoil's point. Did you read his original post about pogroms? It's not about rounding people up and executing them, it's about making it clear you hate a class of people, through rhetoric and through occasional targeted violence. Please tell me you've read his post fully before you downplay the fear of a pogrom again. His logic makes sense to me, and it's pretty topical, given current events.
Bingbong
5hr ago
I do think Trump would have been at greater risk of personal harm if he were dropped into the middle of a George Floyd riot than if Biden were actually caught by the Jan 6ers, though. Maybe since it's hard to be like... actively mad at Biden since he's on his final hitpoint.
gafpromise
5hr ago
Sure, and Fox News hosts have recently suggested things like bombing the UN or giving homeless people involuntary lethal injections. You can nut-pick all day long and both sides do it. Both hosts still have their jobs, by the way.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-fox-news-brian-130000750.html
Bingbong
5hr ago
Personally I feel like the Right is more consistent on their level of Macho posturing whilst the Left seemingly divides the world into 'above all reproach, words are violence' and 'MURDER THE NON-MASKER' kinds of rhetoric.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5hr ago
I don't think saying, "This person is guilty of a capital crime, in my opinion," is the same thing as calling for political violence. It's calling for the rule of law, and if the law says, "Sorry, this person isn't actually guilty of a capital crime," then there you go. Violence stops there.
MTG though, she's something else. I have no qualms with wishing she were out of office and disavowing most of what she says. Marjorie Taylor Greene had an average 24% Approval Rating among Republicans. Most Republicans didn't recognize her name in the poll:
Most who were asked about Greene said that they had no opinion of the congresswoman. Republicans were less likely to be aware of or have an opinion about Greene than Democrats, with 64 percent of Democrats weighing in compared to only 44 percent of Republicans.
Greene is more important to Democrats to show how crazy Republicans are, than she is to Republicans who largely don't think about her at all and when they do agree she is pretty crazy.
Have you read The Baroque Cycle?
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