domain:samschoenberg.substack.com
hydroacetylene
14hr ago
Trump being anything other than pro-israel?
I for one would much rather go to Bumfuck University, USA than have the misfortune of setting foot in the UK. Even if the school might be "better" an Oxford graduate is looking at a far lower salary than a graduate from a completely mediocre US school. And good luck networking, because the snooty aristocrats certainly won't let you in the club.
going to the Ivy League is like being a member of Annabel's and all the new money connotations that gives while going to Oxbridge is like being a member of The Athenaeum (even being a member of White's is more respectable than being a member of Annabel's); for those of us who know, we know...
Sounds like a bunch of stuck up people starting a cool kids club to cope with the fact that they make less money than a Taco Bell store manager in the United States. Literally the only people who care are the people who got in.
Personally, I'm partial to Sam's.
Edit: Apparently I can get reciprocal membership to the Athenaeum. Maybe I should show up just to ruin all those elites days for having to deal with being in the presence of a schlub like me.
JarJarJedi
14hr ago
Democrats don't want you dead, because the democrats asking for your head don't have any understanding of violence.
Most of them may not have a practical knowledge of how the violence is done, but they will wholeheartedly support, enable and defend those 10% who do. And another 10% who want to and will play the meat shield for the previous ones should it prove necessary (like it's happening in Portland right now) and commit as much of haphazard and ineffective violence as they can, fully taking advantage of the fact that nobody would fight them like the real enemy (while they would, as much as they could). And those 20% are enough to deliver a lot of damage, especially given that there's no organized opposition to them so far (every attempt to do what they are doing on the right had been forcefully squashed by the law enforcement, and likely many of those were the fake from the start, clearly created to weed out the active 10% on the right and put them out before they can do anything).
Grunts are cheap though. Cheap and replaceable. If you have tens or hundreds of thousands of people who think murder of political opponents is A-OK, and all their peers think the same, and all their reference circle thinks the same, and literally everybody they know think the same - it won't be hard to find one or two to commit the action when necessary. Gavrilo Princip wasn't some kind of superhuman terminator, he was a poor student. Most assassins are totally unremarkable. The candidate pool of them is inexhaustible once the proper mindset is entrenched.
My point is, they shout about killing Trump because they are unable to imagine the act of killing, punching or drawing blood.
I am not sure how the person with knowledge of the events event for the last year can say something like that. I mean, they literally shot him in the head. And tried to do it again. They very well can imagine it, and that's exactly what they imagine in their wet dreams (when those aren't occupied by trans furry porn, of course). Many of them may not know the technical details of how to effectively do it, but as we are being proven repeatedly, it doesn't take a superhuman, just a random joe with the demonic idea possessing him harder than most of his peers.
The slightest glimpse into real violence leaves a lasting negative taste in one's mouth (unless you're a psychopath).
Their ideological drivers are smart. They know humans don't like violence. That's why the decades-long campaign of dehumanization of the right is (was, has been) necessary. Violence against Nazis is not real violence. That's why this word is being used. It's a marker. Once you are marked a "Nazi", you are excluded from the human empathy mechanism, and the left by now is very well trained to do this. It may have taken a long time, but now it is done. The code is written, uploaded and running. The barrier is down. There's no pit in anyone's stomach about killing the Nazis, only the righteous rage towards the enemies of humanity.
then, call in the national guard.
Haven't you heard yet? National Guard is now owned by a certain Portland judge, and she in the Supreme Commander. Nothing can be called anywhere unless all Antifa-loving judges agree with it. So, you have nobody to call.
faceh
14hr ago
I'm comfortable saying that if someone IS comfortable shooting a child, I would rather they be launched into a volcano by trebuchet than continue co-existing with them. Much less they have political power over me.
Sure I can think of justifications for possibly shooting a kid, but a person who does should be pretty repentant and broken up about it, probably to the point of having PTSD. Incidentally the apparent callous disregard for children as casualties is why I'm not really rooting for a "side" in the Israel Palestine conflict.
So I do NOT want to accuse this guy of being okay with kids getting shot, lest I also have to suggest he get launched into a volcano.
But the casual ability to joke about a specific person's children that way is definitely irksome. Its fair to demand much, much better of public servants.
Butlerian
Not robot-ist just don't like 'em
14hr ago
Women making porn is disgusting and harms them, but the Left messaging on that is not ‘You’re pigs, we want to let you’ but ‘You are beautifully expressing your sexuality and simultaneously a victim of the patriarchy, men are disgusting and we want to destigmatise you’, which is the kind of double standard that men might noootice.
phailyoor
14hr ago
Meanwhile in Canada giving lethal injection to homeless mentally ill people is not only a mainstream political opinion, but the official policy of the government.
Quantumfreakonomics
14hr ago
there’s not much the rank and file can do to stop them.
All they have to do is check the box labeled “Ocasio-Cortez”. That’s it. Nothing can stop them if they decide to check the box.
ulyssessword
14hr ago
It's not surprising, it's appalling. The asymmetry is worth pointing out for that reason. And if it causes people to lose trust in the system? Tough shit, become trustworthy if you want to be trusted.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
14hr ago
I mean, sure, but also, how retarded were we when it happened?
This was a conversation he had when he was already a sitting state representative, with another sitting state representative for the opposite political party.
There are private conversations... and then there are conversations that are conceivably FOIA'able, and this, if not the latter, is really fucking close to it. To say nothing of it just being fucking stupid. In a world where "private conversation" summons up the image of signal chats being leaked, or pre-political career SMS messages or group chats, this is about as far away from that as possible, while still, maybe, and only maybe, being covered by the umbrella of "private conversation".
ThisIsSin
PC is for progressive-conservative
14hr ago
It is disgusting and harms them.
Yes, that is an objectively correct characterization of how my outgroup works in relation to me.
ulyssessword
14hr ago
The crucial mistake of the J6 protestors is that they were all incredibly stupid. The BLM rioters at least had the sense to operate primarily at night, conceal their identities, and choose locations that weren't guaranteed to be under God-level surveillance.
Organized, premeditated crime that takes active countermeasures against police actions is worse than unplanned or spontaneous crime, and yet I've seen it trotted out again and again as a defense of leftwing riots. It's not like you can cancel out a murder by also obstructing police, tampering with the crime scene, and conspiring to hide the shooters. That's just three extra crimes.
Do you know what functional states do when faced with (effective, organized) criminal opposition? They take it down. If regular policework isn't enough, then start creating specialized departments for it. Maybe it shouldn't be called the "Organized Crime" department since that name's already taken, but where are the police organizations dedicated to deliberate, organized criminal leftwing riots?
DirtyWaterHotDog
14hr ago
The backlash being faced by Klien, Derek, Yglesias and Buttigieg is baffling. Everything they've said has been polite, non-accusatory and measured. Yet, they're being treated like Nazis by left social-media.
I don't have a read on how radicalized the younger democrats are. But, looking at reddit, bluesky or the youtube ...... they're being dogpiled.
faceh
14hr ago
Very manly, yes, but not very helpful unless you're sure A is an abject coward.
I am DEAD CERTAIN that A is a coward in this case.
If they don't want to kill or die over words then they can simply recant. Most people do not want to kill or die over words.
Of course, we can make the duel less than lethal if needed.
plural
14hr ago
I'd be hard pressed to think that any people who regularly post in dedicated political spaces aren't engaged in pure conflict theory especially when its a place like Reddit which is naturally and unnaturally designed to hide all pushback (mods controlling topics, downvotes hiding the wrong opinions). This is a culture war, and they believe their way of life is at stake at the very least. Of course they lie, that would be my default assumption given the low-quality and high incentives of most places that discuss politics. To me this is just a day that ends in y comment.
I mean Reddit is going to be more politically slanted than anything on /pol/ just because what they want the narrative to be is controlled by upvotes, downvotes, bots, and mods. And on 4chan mods or janitors might fuck with things or try to but pretty much half the posts in /pol/ at any given time are people trolling because its designed to be unpreventable and when they do try to prevent discussion of a topic it goes poorly (gamergate). Reddit just chugs along, lets get every single subreddit to ban twitter - done. No problem even if the majority of users didn't care or want that, just chugs along.
At this point continuing to concern yourself with that is just outrage masturbation. You linked to politics, politics, unfiltered news, and bluesky skeets. Politics I know is the most left leaning place I can possibly imagine and the others are probably worse. Pointing out moments when /r/politics lies for their own narrative is like shooting fish in a barrel overfilled with fish. Even the most reddit-pilled reddit user will shrug off the denizens of /r/politics with being arguments-as-soldiers liars as par for the course. And I'm sure those other subreddits hold about as much political water for being balanced as the_donald or kotakuinaction does.
I do think there's something to be said about Reddit only holding stigma with enemies of it. A "normie" will not really care if you said you read something on Reddit, but if you said the same thing and gave the same information and said you got it from 4chan or Twitter you'd be a racist, even if only slightly, and if you said it was from Facebook you'd be doling out misinformation or at the least boomer-tier out-of-touchness. Reddit might be, at a glance, easily seen as dominated and controlled by the left but it doesn't carry a stigma which I imagine is exceedingly useful in wagging the dog which I expect is the intention with conflict theory throwing-shit-at-the-wall-and-hoping-it-sticks way tallying of evil to preemptively win or bury an argument.
I do think this is why Elon is more hated than Trump in my opinion because he stole Twitter from the left which was used in the exact same way that Reddit is used. Stigma-free narrative control. Bluesky doesn't have that, even if Twitter/X is now racist, Bluesky is not just what normal people think about a subject in the way that twitter was presented before the buyout or Reddit is bundled and sold as now. (Reddit does have to be bundled but the bundling does work).
Anyways. Ever since I stopped going to Reddit because I was tired with the political discussions filling every single subreddit, regardless of what the content was supposed to be, I've been much better off and I think you should probably try to ignore it, too.
ABigGuy4U
14hr ago
All it takes is for a populist upstart to sweep the 2028 Dem primary by steamrolling the wokescolds and pro-Israel donors.
That’s the whole problem though, Democrat Party bylaws and primary structure make it much more resistant to any kind of populist takeover. The leadership can jam the throttle and point the plane right at a mountain and there’s not much the rank and file can do to stop them.
I happen to know better - that even if he could be taken to trial, which already might not be possible, Joe would not be convicted under current jurisprudence and laws of the land. But on the other hand, I do believe that Joe earnestly tried to subvert and destroy the country. An act that under the colloquial definition of treason, as well as the historical definition of treason accepted by many societies, would clearly qualify. Undoubtedly countless fair and just executions have been carried out throughout history for offenses far less than what Joe has done.
I'm assuming the average boomer has no idea how the legal system works, or how treason is defined under United States law, or how current jurisprudence interprets that law. I'm sure the average boomer sees Joe's actions as treasonous and assumes that the law would agree.
Interestingly, trying to overthrow or destroy the United States doesn't actually count as treason under the law.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
14hr ago
What about their opinion on the Israel situation do you find baffling in particular?
JarJarJedi
14hr ago
They are not direct ancestors maybe, but close relatives. Cousins or something like that. The totalitarian mindset is the same, the world model is the same - there's a group of people which is the reason of every evil and must be suppressed by all means necessary. It's true that for the modern Left the inclusion of the Jews into this group is consequential to them being so close to foundations of the Western civilization (which is the real target) that it's impossible to not include them, while for Nazis the Jews were pretty much the sole focus. But looking beyond those surface differences, the ideological skeleton behind it is surprisingly similar. And I don't think this is a coincidence.
phailyoor
15hr ago
Sure, most "normie" democrats don't directly want you dead. They don't really think about it that way. But somehow they always vote for people who want you dead and say so on national television. And they wouldn't be caught dead voting for anyone who doesn't want you dead.
phailyoor
15hr ago
You act as though there are tens of thousands of people out there who the police know committed crimes but who aren't being arrested for political reasons.
Absolutely there are
I will grant that a lot of people who were arrested for more minor crimes like failure to disperse had the charges dropped without incident.
re-arrest every single one of them on new charges and throw the book at them. Get a warrant and crawl through every device and account they they have, and search all their belongings for any antifa-related items.
J6ers got felonies simply for walking through an open door.
But the people who caused damage and were caught generally were prosecuted.
Who?
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
15hr ago
Nah, Trump has his true believers, but he catches shit from the right all the time. If he talked about killing Kamala's husband's kids, there would be a large blowback, and it would be a national media firestorm for a week.
The Michael Scott line he actually probably could get away with, because he would tell it as an actual joke, not the "haha only serious I fucking hatehatehate that fucker" "joke" which is the actual genesis of that line that was old long before Michael Scott said it.
Also, I hate The Office and I'm very glad that it seems to be mostly fading as a cultural touchstone. It was the worst of the NBC big sitcoms by a huge margin.
DirtyWaterHotDog
15hr ago
I'm speaking of young men aged 18-35. My opinions are colored by personal anecdotes from deep-blue cities.
I haven't met a non-communist straight man who has 'volunteered for the democrats' or 'worked on the campaign'. On the other hand, I know multiple women and LGBT men who have done so. I am the eldest of a family of male cousins. The college aged (18-25) cousins only express positive emotions about democrats when around women their age (reasons obvious).
I could be in an echo chamber. But, it sure feels like the truth.
You are also aware that local Democratic committees are composed of 1 man and 1 woman per precinct by rule?
I was not aware of this. Good rule. I went back and looked at the numbers. Now seems as good as time as any to be a young man in democratic party. A healthy number (~50%) of the young democratic leaders (major mayors, house reps, senators) are under 45 men. Try as I may, the real numbers don't match my intuitions.
I still have my suspicions. But, I stand corrected.
vorpa-glavo
15hr ago
I'm perfectly happy to accept the official narrative, if investigators say that it wasn't arson.
However, we live in an era where the internet has created so many different epistemic bubbles that question whatever the experts and authorities say, on both the right and left. On one hand, I think this can be a healthy thing. If you're a woman in the 1940's, and the medical authorities are telling your husband that he should get you a lobotomy to deal with your various issues, is it better to be married to a sheep who follows everything the authorities say, or a contrarian who maybe rubs some people the wrong way but whose questioning of authority leads him to rejecting lobotomies (maybe without any good evidence or reason for his actual rejection)?
I agree that objective facts matter. It is my hope that all people will embrace the idea that even if deferring to experts and authorities is often a necessary shortcut for getting by in the world for most people in most circumstances, you should be prepared to do your own research and have the independent conscience to depart from the crowd if that is what your reason or character tells you to do. On the other hand, sometimes you're going to lose to reality, and it will turn out the experts were right all along.
But it's all about humanity not putting all of its eggs into one basket. It is positively good for humanity as a whole if a small portion of us become Amish, or reject modernity for religious or ideological reasons, or join cults, or have their children die of diseases we have reliable vaccines for, because the diversity of practices maximizes the odds that there will be at least one group of humans available to inherit the ashes after the sheep do something so stupid and destructive that it kills billions of humans, or leaves most of humanity infertile, or does anything that almost wipes out the whole species.
There should be room for normie rule-followers, of course. They're the salt of the Earth, and society would be intolerable and impossible without them, no matter what shape society takes. But I think we should feel grateful for the insurance policy that groups that are often easily mocked or not taken seriously because they depart so far from consensus reality provide.
All this to say, I think it is completely fair to mock lefties that are so caught in their epistemic bubble that they can't conceive of the idea that fires just happen, and there's no need to invent an arson conspiracy with corresponding government conspiracy. Probably, they are just wrong, and they're just departing from objective, consensus reality for no good reason. But that's also not the worst trait a group can exhibit.
zoink
15hr ago
I don't think the imbalance for leftists in the justice system should be all the surprising. It's been decades of leftist having literal terrorists with tenure. Marxist and Communists with tenure outnumber Nazis and Fascists by about... what? 100x? 1,000x? 100,000x? All while calling the most milk toast Republicans like Romney fascists.
As a (admittedly bi, but married to a woman) man in a deep blue city, I'll raise my hand. A half lifetime ago, I spent several years getting my paychecks from Democratic campaigns and the DNC (depending on when in the cycle we were).
Thinking about my ex-coworkers (who were mostly male) I've stayed in touch with, I'd say a third to a half are now thoroughly disenchanted with the Democratic Party, with the turn toward identity-based politics being a repeated, major point brought up by them.
Though none of us have voted Republican, AFAIK.
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