domain:bracero.substack.com
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
2m ago
This does not apply to any other part of the Earth apart from Antarctica, covered by an international treaty, and has not itself been defined by a treaty, so clearly this claim is just an attempt to create a new international status to some territory for the specific purpose of benefitting Israel.
The internationally recognized status of Gaza and the West Bank were hammered out in the Oslo Accords. This status does not match the facts on the ground, but that's not actually Israel's doing -- it's that the Palestinian Authority was driven from Gaza, by Hamas. Gaza is (or was, until the current offensive) an unrecognized (including by Egypt and Jordan, who I believe recognize the Palestinian Authority) but de facto independent state. This is not some novel status; it happens every time some separatist movement becomes strong enough to hold territory. For another current example, there's Somaliland.
aqouta
3m ago
I don't take super strong sides on the conflict. It seems to have been a game of tit for tat that the Palestinians have always kept playing despite being very bad at it.
The present ruling population of Israel mostly moved to that territory in the late '40s, and from the start has continued violently expelling the ancestors of present Palestinians from their homes to acquire their land for themselves.
This is not a reasonable summary of events. I'll give a slightly more broken down version from my understanding, if I got something wrong let me know and I'll probably update it:
- There were always some Jews in that region
- The Jews are having a bad time as minorities basically everywhere they are and recently had an attempt at genocide committed against them so they are anxious to establish a state where they are the majority.
- the Ottoman empire needs money so they establish the right of land ownership and a number of Arabs end up living as poor tenants under absentee Arab landlords
- Jews buy up ~5% of this land and kick the tenant Arabs off this land (I do think this was a wrong committed but not terribly out of step with the morality of the time) They set up kind of leftist Kibbutzim on this land
- The Ottoman empire collapses and Britain takes over the area which is now called Mandatory Palestine which includes bits of modern day Jordan and Syria. The Mandatory system is kind of where Britain rules for a while and after the mandatory period ends they intend to draw up state lines and hand the reins over to whatever state(s) form.
- There are some small scale Massacres of jews leading to the jews forming some militia like groups, the largest of which is mostly reasonable but there was at least one smaller militia that did its own massacres.
- Tit for Tat escalations continue the brits are pretty unhappy with the whole thing
- Mandatory period is supposed to end in 1948 but a single peaceful state doesn't seem like something either the Arabs or Jews of the region are interested in.
- 1947 there is a UN plan to establish two states Palestinians don't send representation and deny the legitimacy of the plan.
- Israel is declared a state and surrounding Arabs immediately attack.
- Israel surprisingly wins the war and takes lands beyond even the 1947 proposed borders, many Arabs are expelled at this point and this is what is referred to as the Nakba.
- at the same time as Arabs are being Expelled from Israel the Jews are being expelled from the surrounding Arab nations and mostly going to Israel.
- From then to today a pattern repeats of Israel very obviously wishing it could take over the whole region and expel the rest of the Arabs but never actually need to instigate this because the Arabs in the region reliably attack them and provoke retaliation.
I'm left thinking there isn't a clear "good team" here, the Palestinians did get screwed over but usually in ways where they were at least somewhat to blame. Israel's settlements in the west bank are really ridiculous and should probably be dismantled. It's true that Israel isn't giving Palestinians full autonomy in their region but this is understandable given than Palestinians are nearly constantly lobbing rockets at Israel. Israel seemed, at least before Oct 7th, to be willing to go down a de-escalatory path but the Palestinians Seem totally unwilling to walk that path instead harboring the delusion that they're going to some day expel all the Jews and take all the land.
Given this I will say I do mostly side with the Israelis. They're more western and seem to at least attempt to minimize their atrocities in a way that I don't expect the Palestinians to do. A war where Palestinians were wearing the shoes of the Israelis would be an actual Genocide.
No_one
3m ago
There's some men who find fat people attractive - I mean, genuinely fat, not the 'built like a brick shithouse' hourglass body type that is attractive to maybe half men even if the BMI is firmly in the 'overweight' range. (the girl in picture is actually obese, BMI wise)
naraburns
nihil supernum
6m ago
So it would at least be good to specify the viewpoint from which you're judging a particular claim as inflammatory.
As with all rules, it's the viewpoint of the best judgment of the moderators.
I personally don't think there's anything inflammatory at all about "women love a killer".
That's why I referenced the specific/general rule there, rather than the inflammatory one.
Is no one allowed to post under the assumption that HBD is true unless they include a link to a list of HBD 101 resources laying out the supporting evidence?
That depends largely on the tone of the post. A factual and charitable but non-inflammatory post that leads a person toward uncomfortable conclusions is a very different thing than a meticulously-researched-and-linked post that paints whole groups of people in demeaning or derogatory ways using needlessly hostile language.
In this particular case, I would point out for example that while drawing comparisons between urban crime today and literally barbaric behavior in the ancient world is different in tone than straight up referring to a group as "barbarians." The objection might be--"well yeah, but if it quacks like a duck..." and I am totally sympathetic to wanting to resist the pejorative treadmill. Fortunately, the rules are not self-enforcing, and the mod team is comprised of reasonable individuals doing their best to prevent this from becoming a community where one particular sort of person just comes to vent their spleen.
The most we can do is our best.
No_one
9m ago
One of the observations about anorexia is that before modernity it also existed but those women claimed they were fasting for religious reasons. There might even be a saint who starved herself to death rather than suffer some indignity like forced marriage. (not sure)-
It looks more like something broken and the sufferers confabulating reasons for wanting to be that way.
sliders1234
9m ago
“I am familiar with the evidence”
As am I and a fully fleshed out argument would probably start with the raping of the Sabine then cite historical examples elsewhere (Tribes in Brazilian rain forest, probably Aztecs), cite serial killers getting young hot wives in prison, a little 50 Shades of Grey plus polling on women sexual fantasies and porn watching habits.
Is the goal to write comments that a thorough blue triber who mostly hangs out in places like neoliberal Reddit stumbles into this place and gets the full arguments (leader to long comments) or that 80-90% of the people know the references for the frame a person is citing?
Long form and relitigating every frame hinders the ability to develop models to apply to new situations. My support for your position in this specific comment would basically come down to I haven’t seen anyone argue about female attraction to violence lately. The only incident lately I believe Ymeskhout linked to a Scott Alexander post talking about a client who constantly goes to jail for beating his wives and constantly has a new wife or the wife he previously went to jail for beating is sleeping with him again.
No_one
11m ago
I think you're typical minding. You're not a median woman, very far from it, furthermore you're old enough to have used your vastly superior mental tools to get a whole lot of experience.
What does a median 18-22 woman know about these things? Women are conformist, they 'read the room'. If media and society keep putting out a message "being chubby is bad etc" a young woman might have spent years as deluded about male preferences as some guys are deluded about female ones (the so called 'nice guy' ). Sure that's not very applicable now with the obesity epidemic, nevertheless..
Also, there's a whole bunch of research that found women don't really know what men want, body shape wise.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
12m ago
The present ruling population of Israel mostly moved to that territory in the late '40s, and from the start has continued violently expelling the ancestors of present Palestinians from their homes to acquire their land for themselves.
You and SecureSignals can keep telling yourselves that, but it's a strange narrative that ignores the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the first time the Arab states tried to push Israel into the sea.
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The people promptly elected Hamas as their champions, and Hamas used that power to make war on Israel by firing rockets. Israel basically just withstood this (and built Iron Dome) for many years, until October 7.
As a Brit, and very much not a neo-nazi, my understanding is that the bombing of Dresden specifically was not particularly necessary for the war effort. The tide of war had already turned against the Germans, and Dresden was of little military significance. It was generally regarded as retaliation for the bombing of Coventry in England, although this article argues that it was done to help the Russian offensive. Either way, Churchill didn't approve:
“Churchill’s head of Bomber Command, Air Marshal Harris, seemed to think German morale might still be broken by bombing, but Churchill rebuked him after Dresden, and again, just as strongly for bombing Potsdam shortly thereafter. His mind had already turned to how the Allies would govern and occupy Germany; the time for destroying it was passing.
While I agree with your sentiment that
There is no ethical principle other than "Whites bad" (or other general Who, Whom?) that condemns Israel while not condemning not just the Palestinians, but the vast majority of the Arab countries for their historic displacements and exterminations of Christians and Jews.
there seems to be a significant strand of pro-Israel support that doesn't condemn Israel at all and regards the killing of tens of thousands to be entirely justified. I don't think one has to be an anti-semite to feel discomfort at the scale of death for dubious gain.
hydroacetylene
18m ago
Yeah, they probably assumed somebody eating unlimited shrimp would, on average, drink 3 $5 bud lightscoors lights and an $8 winearita, and that it would be a loss leader for that reason. But to run that deal I suspect they were already looking at some bad numbers and desperately trying to get people in the door to do their $5 light beer drinking at RL instead of chilis.
RobertLiguori
18m ago
If you are continuously denied justice in an existential matter, though, I don't think it's at all an alien viewpoint that you are morally entitled to do whatever you find appropriate to seize justice for yourself, including ineffectual and vile acts of revenge such as murdering the women and children of those who wronged you.
Then unless you fall into your own bullet one above, you've got your justification not just for Israel's extremely restrained and humane war, but for actual full-on retaliation. Palestinians literally are the criminal mafia you use metaphor to compare to Jews, they are actively and currently targeting Jewish civilians for the purpose of unrestrained murder, so by your reasoning, we should be pro-Israel and support them because they are, by and large, not shooting Palestinian children because they imagine them to be related to mob bosses and mocking them.
There is no ethical principle other than "Whites bad" (or other general Who, Whom?) that condemns Israel while not condemning not just the Palestinians, but the vast majority of the Arab countries for their historic displacements and exterminations of Christians and Jews. If "That screaming child I just killed was related to people who have wronged me." is understandable justification for said killing, then Israel is justified seven times fucking seventy; if that is not a principle you are willing to endorse generally, then you are starting from the position that the acts of violence that the Palestinians are committing are unjustified and monstrous, and you have a practical answer.
As a calibration question, I'm curious what you think of the Allies's campaign in WWII. Do you sympathize with the modern Neo-Nazi arguments that the firebombing of Dresden was an abomination, that the mass destruction of civilian life is never justified, and thus Nazi resistance to Allied occupation was justified then and justified now? Were the lives of the German civilians that died in Dresden precious enough that the war effort should have been forestalled?
I recognize that Nazi comparisons are emotive and can shed more heat than light, but I also recognize that the "Jews are literally all organized criminal gangsters, down to the children." is ticking boxes off of my Historical Anti-Semitism bingo card I did not expect to see in ${CURRENT_YEAR}, and feel that the potentially-inflammatory barn door is opened.
OliveTapenade
22m ago
Mainly at the level where I think, boy, it'd be really nice to read the Motte without the same two or three people every time yelling about the Jews.
Could we maybe have a few days' break from people repeating their theory that everything bad that has ever happened is due to the Jews? Oh no, I stubbed my toe, those damn Jewish elites! It's worse than incorrect - it's boring.
veqq
28m ago
Palestinians are the Jews and Christians who converted to Islam (or kept Christianity.) Many are descended from Jews expelled elsewhere - I personally know multiple Palestinians who have gotten Spanish citizenship after proving their ancestors were expelled in 1492 for being Jewish along these lines: https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-refugee-gets-spanish-citizenship-after-discovering-jewish-roots/
PyotrVerkhovensky
45m ago
Harrison Butker's commencement speech (transcript) is probably the most politically incorrect public exposition I've ever heard from a (relatively) public non-political figure. Butker is the Kansas City Chief's placekicker, and a devout Catholic. He hits nearly all the culture war hot topics: abortion, pride month, women's role in society, the Covid response, and Biden's leadership or lack thereof.
While the mainstream and new media are universal in their condemnation of this speech, the NFL up to this point is merely "distancing" itself from Butker's viewpoints. If Butker's career can survive intact, this seems to be further evidence in favor of the "vibe-shift". Indeed, he may have shifted the Overton window himself: he mentions his "teammate's girlfriend" (Taylor Swift); and simply by being on the same team as Travis Kelce, Butker's beliefs has the potential to be platformed to the millions of women who have started following the Chiefs.
Courage is contagious: the more people who stand up to the regime, the easier it becomes for others to do so. In my own small way, I signed a petition in support of Butker under my real name. While this seems a small risk to take, it isn't one I would have countenanced four years ago.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
50m ago
Big media outlets have low public trust, so they shouldn’t be used as a litmus test for whether a story is true or important. And there are a lot of legal things which nevertheless demand our attention. IMO notable takeaways from this are —
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The public narrative about an important foreign policy issue is molded by ethnic identitarian billionaires who have maximal “skin in the game”, or motive to be biased. “Jewish” is an implementation detail here, the crux of the problem is that a group of hyper-biased billionaires are changing the narrative on a highly sensitive issue which demands impartial objectivity. This influence is not counterbalanced by another force because Palestinians simply aren’t as numerous, wealthy, powerful, or tribal in America. Given that their influence is secretive, we can’t know whether a mayor or police chief is doing something because it is right or because of influence. We similarly can’t know whether a big media outlet is biased or not. IMO this means that the American public must be ultra-careful about scrutinizing information about both Israel and the protests. As another user mentioned ITT, the story of former IDF soldiers(?) clobbered the skulls of students with planks got less coverage than it would were a group of a former Iranian soldiers clobbering Jewish students. And that the police turned a blind eye on this makes one wonder whether it was a Jewish billionaire’s influence behind the scenes that encouraged it through proxies (“I will fund your campaign / give your daughter an internship / withdraw my donation / …”). That is unevidenced, but that doesn’t mean it is improbable. All we know is what they are doing in a semi-private group chat, so what they do behind the scenes could be less wholesome.
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There is potentially something illegal occurring, because these activists are being briefed by the Israeli government officially, and likely by Mossad operatives unofficially.
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Although the law states that protests need the proper certificates, Moral Law unequivocally states that all laws must be impartially applied. Moral law states that once you have biasedly applied a law, there no longer is a law anymore, just tyranny with a side of lying. I think that the norm during BLM was that protests on campuses did not need all the proper certificates. I would rather not have authorities selectively deciding “who gets to protest the most” based on secretive political interests by tribalistic billionaires.
No_one
55m ago
He replies "she could lose some weight" or "you could lose some weight" to any picture of a woman he comes across, with the exception of actually anorexic or very thin ones where he'll say "you should gain some weight".
I'd say the only constant is that it makes women mad.
shakenvac
59m ago
the present ruling population of Israel mostly moved to that territory in the late '40s, and from the start has continued violently expelling the ancestors of present Palestinians from their homes to acquire their land for themselves.
This is true to a point. It is also true that Israel was once far larger than it is today. The Israelis captured huge swathes of land through force of arms in defensive wars, and has mostly returned that land peaceably. The Israelis left the Gazans to their own devices in 2005. The common narrative that Israel is constantly expanding is ahistorical.
If you are continuously denied justice in an existential matter, though, I don't think it's at all an alien viewpoint that you are morally entitled to do whatever you find appropriate to seize justice for yourself, including ineffectual and vile acts of revenge such as murdering the women and children of those who wronged you.
I see this logic - not that I agree with it, but I see it. What I don't see is how your logic is not fully generalizable to the Israelis. They have also been wronged by Palestinian actions. How can it be in your paradigm that Palestinians have the right to invade Israel and kill every Jew they see, but then the Israelis do not have the right to bring indiscriminate death down upon the Palestinians in retaliation? (for the record, I do not believe either of them have the right to do this, nor do I believe that Israel's response has been indiscriminate.)
If you have been driven out of your house and into a corner at gunpoint by the mafia, the mafia boss's kid stands by watching the show and mocking you, and, seeing an opening, you shoot the kid, I will find it hard to fault you for the murder
While I don't think the analogy is particularly fair, I will point out that there is only one moral paradigm in which the shooter in your story is unambiguously justified, and that is blood feud. That is inherently a might-makes-right morality. The shooter will soon find out the hard way that that the Mafia have no more scruples than he when it comes to killing children.
I appreciate the detailed writeup. I will freely concede the following points: your analysis is probably correct, and the ICC's verdict is probably tendentious and politically motivated.
I am, I'm afraid, arguing vibes. The USA's pitch to the world over last half-century of so has been something along the lines of:
"We're here to help. Previously, empires were allowed to bully and exploit smaller countries, but we're different. We intend to put in place a world order that will allow (and require) countries to cooperate and trade with each other on equal terms. We intend to police the world if necessary, but not to rule it."
Given that, for America to exempt itself and its vassals from the international court with jurisdiction over
(a) The crime of genocide; (b) Crimes against humanity; (c) War crimes; (d) The crime of aggression.
and to explicitly threaten employees of the court is a very bad look. It makes people start to wonder why America feels that laws around genocide and war crimes are "inapplicable or inappropriate" when applied to America. It brings back memories of the invasion of Iraq. It also brings back memories of things like the unequal extradition treaty between America and the UK. It's as though Bill Gates declared that he was too important to be bound by laws against murder, or at the very least demanded the right to determine whether those laws were being correctly applied to him and his friends on a case-by-case basis.
it would be immoral to force nation-states to be governed by agreements they did not agree to
Precisely as immoral as it is to force people to be governed by laws they didn't sign.
In short, does America sincerely believe that it is too important and powerful to answer to anyone else? America's behaviour suggests that the answer is yes, and any intimations otherwise is 'who, whom' propaganda. The more America resorts to economic and diplomatic coercion, the less interested everyone else is in helping to maintain the system and America's place in it.
Having said all of that, I think that international law is an extremely flawed concept. The idea that one government can enter into an agreement that is considered binding on subsequent governments decades later seems ludicrous and anti-democratic. As with most law, it's ultimately a fudge for applying coercive power in a manner that is mostly accepted and results in minimal fuss. I wouldn't bear America any ill will for saying, "our voters are pro-Israel and we feel the need to act accordingly, regardless of international law" provided that they extended the same courtesy to everybody else.
Dean
1hr ago
What was the diplomatic position of the United States about the ICC charging Vladimir Putin?
Legit question?
As a formal position, they've been mostly silent, with various policy-journal debates on how much to support or not. Some elements have used it as an argument to join the Rome Statute entirely, others resist.
As a practical / strategic position, the US is happy to help investigate / catalog war crimes, and then signal-boosting the ICC's findings to other ICC states to complicate Russia's relations. While the US itself isn't a member of the ICC, many of Russia's partners are, and so helping the ICC works against Russia and to the US interest even if no arrest is made.
As a legal position? That ICC has limited jurisdiction over various crimes in Ukrainian territory due to Ukraine inviting them to.
This is the ICC bulletin rather than a US statement, but the US would generally follow the point:
Ukraine is not a State Party to the Rome Statute, but it has twice exercised its prerogatives to accept the Court's jurisdiction over alleged crimes under the Rome Statute occurring on its territory, pursuant to article 12(3) of the Statute. The first declaration lodged by the Government of Ukraine accepted ICC jurisdiction with respect to alleged crimes committed on Ukrainian territory from 21 November 2013 to 22 February 2014. The second declaration extended this time period on an open-ended basis to encompass ongoing alleged crimes committed throughout the territory of Ukraine from 20 February 2014 onwards.
The general position of the US in Iraq or Afghanistan is that the US forces remained in the government after the initial invasions at the request of the legitimate and internationally recognized governments, with whom the US had a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that governed authorized activities and how to handle incidents of misconduct (including how trials would occur). The position would be that misconduct by US forces wasn't a matter of policy or purpose, but something the US would investigate and if appropriate prosecute soldiers for when identified. The US would provide data and information to support that point when asked, even as it denied the ICC had a jurisdiction to detain or try US soldiers.
The main contrasts with the Russian position is that Ukraine is an internationally recognized state who has invited the ICC in to investigate what has occurred on internationally recognized Ukrainian territory, but the Iraqi/Afghan governmets that were internationally recognized were not trying to invite the ICC against the US or its coalitions*.
*This is why most of the ICC applications in the context of Iraq were centered on the UK. Between the US, the UK, and Iraq, the UK was the only one the ICC had automatic jurisdiction over and could compel cooperation from.
Mantergeistmann
1hr ago
The present ruling population of Israel mostly moved to that territory in the late '40s, and from the start has continued violently expelling the ancestors of present Palestinians from their homes to acquire their land for themselves.
My understanding is that prior to the '40s, said present ruling population (or their ancestors) had themselves been violently expelled from their homes, in some cases by the present Palestinians/their ancestors, or other related groups. It feels odd to me to acknowledge the Arab/Muslim claims on the territory and ancestral lands while pretending all Jews are interlopers. Kind of like if we recognized England as "Ancestral Norman land".
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
1hr ago
Based on the steady torrent of Israel-Palestine threads, the general impression I get is that a majority of people here is quite solidly pro-Israel in this conflict.
Remember that there are a decent amount of people not interested in discussing any particular thing. I've been largely staying out of it, for instance, because I've already come to a conclusion on the best policy of the West (get the fuck out, at least as far as military assistance, to avoid making enemies by backing Israel and avoid getting nuked by openly backing Palestine), it doesn't seem especially likely to blow up in a way that leads to WWIII (unlike Taiwan, which I check the news on every week or so), and I'm not enough of a masochist to keep soaking my brain in the endless stream of atrocities without some actual benefit to doing so.
NelsonRushton
1hr ago
The big media outlets don't seem to be interested in this story. Maybe that is because they are controlled by a Jewish syndicate, or maybe it is because it isn't a big deal. I go with "isn't a big deal". If they were conspiring to break the law that would be a big deal; if they were conspiring to change the law it would be at least interesting -- but what is happening here is that they are "conspiring" to enforce the law -- which they would already be enforcing, with prejudice, if a group on the other side were doing the same thing. So, so what?
2rafa
1hr ago
Yes, I think so. To be all three requires a lot of genetic luck, being born beautiful likely into a wealthy family, being intelligent, having the right education, and being both confident and self-aware / humble enough to know when to pivot to the next role or to change your personality. You need to be a very lucky and socially adroit sociopath.
Aransentin
p ≥ 0.05 zombie
1hr ago
Presumably if one could have reported the experience without naming the perpetrator (or making it obvious who it was), but chose not to.
Palestinians are in a sucky situation and Israel treats them badly(although partly their situation is also sucky because they just can’t stop behaving badly), but in this particular case Israel tried treating them as well as can be historically expected- Israel withdrew from Gaza and left them to govern themselves, they elected literal terrorists who prioritized shooting at Israel over their people’s well being, Israel still didn’t invade until they launched a ground invasion of Israel that everyone who isn’t crazy could tell you they were going to lose.
I’m a Catholic and the part of just war that people keep leaving out is ‘reasonable chance of success’. In a world where Hamas had conventional parity with Israel, they would probably be justified to invade Israel and seek to seize territory. But that isn’t what they did, they ran around raping and kidnapping, and also they had to know they were going to lose in the long run.
Israelis have no more inherent right to the land than Palestinians, and Palestinians have no more inherent right to the land than Israelis. They’ve been fighting over it for 80 years; Israel isn’t the bad guy because they’ve been consistently winning. Some of their treatment of the West Bank could stand to be softened, but Israel’s harsh policies exist for a reason, and the Palestinians need to get over having lost.
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