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話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
8m ago
I don't know if there's a term for this, but it's something I've noticed. Suppose you have the head of an agency called the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agency, and the whole point of your agency is to regulate Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. What many people would expect is that the head of the agency would naturally be an expert on Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Instead, what we see in the real world is that the head of said agency is not an expert on any single one of the things that he's supposed to help regulate, let alone all three. I think this becomes more pronounced the further you move up the political chain, all the way to the President. No senator can be expected to be an expert on economics, nuclear power, firearms, and The Middle East, but they are all expected to weigh in, and potentially vote regarding all of these issues. The President gets this worst of all, as he's supposed to execute on every single issue Congress votes on. This seems to be built into the system from the start.
Perhaps it's just another sign of how completely warped the federal government has become compared to what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
veqq
20m ago
Latin, Russian, Spanish- they all just come out and say things
Classical Latin had a rather small vocabulary (and little direct ability to discuss the abstract, instead personifying or loaning from Greek) but Russian and Spanish are very rich and less direct than English (though many are functionally illiterate, though if anything that means Spanish speakers have more room for crude innuendo...)
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
20m ago
Most Iranians are not religious and do not support the government, which sics foreign militias to oppress them. I speak Persian and have spent much time among them. Every couple of years there are massive riots, with thousands of deaths, as people fight back.
That only makes the question of what do you think is going to happen, once the regime is overthrown, all the more important. Presumably it being able to hold on to power, despite the majority not supporting it, is a sign of a lack of unifying goals among the resistance.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
24m ago
Why? Political ideologies, liberalism the prime example among them, are fairy tales.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
25m ago
Borders are a perfect example of something arbitrary.
Ok. Now do human rights.
defenders of the proposition that rogue/irredentist regimes
You're responding to a post where I say foreign militias are holding the regime in place, which the people don't support. How do you construe that as defending?! Even the "30%" (I think that's a motivated number, but directionally correct that a majority aren't) of Shia in the country don't support the regime, with grand Ayatollas opposing Khamenei. I'm a am pro-regime change in Iran. @Hadad
Two understood it the same way, so my writing is the common denominator, but... I don't understand.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
50m ago
Personally, I'd only wish success to someone banning Disney, rap etc.
To react to your bailey, @The_Nybbler haven't many in this community opposed this government and arana imperii, ascribing modernity's ills to it?
See, I knew this was coming. There is a consistent bait-and-switch deployed by defenders of the proposition that rogue/irredentist regimes such as Iran are actually secretly friendly to Western culture/interests. The initial claim is always “No, they’re not actually trying to ban Western culture or actively harm Western governments.” And then when someone brings up examples of those regimes explicitly opposing Western cultural imports or waging covert/proxy war against Western countries (particularly America), the claim switches to, “Okay yes, they are opposed to the West, but that’s good, actually, because the West is degenerate and its cultural imports deserve to be banned.”
Yes, I have issues with much of the lyrical/philosophical content of hip-hop music and the culture around it. I agree that much of Disney’s recent output is of questionable artistic quality, and that some of its messaging is insidious. However, if there is such a thing as “the West” (and I’ve expressed my skepticism that such a construct refers to something real and consistent) then surely one of its defining factors, at least in the 20th and 21st centuries, is that it is extremely reticent to ban entire categories of art. As an American, I can effortlessly find the intellectual and artistic output of countries and cultures which are openly hostile to my own; I can follow Russian nationalists and Iranian mullahs on Twitter, and I can watch ISIS videos online without needing a VPN lest I risk imprisonment. Only a very insecure and consciously-insular regime would ban the output of its critics, either domestic or foreign. That the Iranian regime does so is a sign that it is not friendly to the spirit of Western-aligned cultures. (It is also, of course, openly very hostile to the political, economic, and military interests of Western-aligned nations.)
I agree with you that the Persian people have no inherently adversarial relationship with me and mine. They are one of the great historical cultures of human history, and I long to see them returned to their former glory. This would not be possible under an Islamic hard-liner regime with revolutionary and anti-Western sentiments baked into its DNA. A proud and high-IQ people deserve better than these incompetent, blustering, grubby mullahs. My problems lie almost entirely with the people on top in Iran, and not with the people who have to live under their boot.
rae
50m ago
You are basing your worldview on random ragebait TikTok videos, a platform where the #peeyourpantschallenge had over four million views. Please, I implore you, talk to real people instead of doomscrolling dumb online discourse.
MEN are the ones not putting in enough effort into their appearance and there's just not enough hot men out there.
It’s absolutely true that most men put way less effort into their appearance than women. Like, c’mon. If you don’t believe this, tell me your skincare routine, how many hair products you own, and how long it takes you to get ready in the morning.
But anyway, that should be an advantage for you. Getting a nice haircut, moisturising regularly and buying a few well fitting fashionable outfits will already set you apart from the crowd.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
1hr ago
Hadad
1hr ago
Cruz is openly admitting that his religious fantasies are a primary motivation for his foreign policy, which in my opinion should disqualify him from holding public office.
Why would a man following the edicts of his conscience disqualify him from office? The state isn't to make laws imposing religion; there's nothing at all forbidding individual politicians from being religiously motivated. You probably wouldn't like the end result if we started policing the inner worlds of representatives.
phailyoor
1hr ago
I don't get this post. So some lib journalist does a hit piece on some maga staffer. And you decide to dramatize it into an entire hecking novel, because why exactly????
Can you explain your point in plain english? Who even is Natalie Winters and why should I care? Why does she represent "BASED" subculture rather than anyone else?
Hadad
1hr ago
hy not just blow it all out in a cocaine-and-hookers weekend and then end it with a 9mm breakfast? Usually, the responses I hear are along the lines of, "I don't want to take such a cowardly way out", "I still want my life to mean something", "You should still try to be a good person." Hmmm, interesting how that kind of sounds like there's actually a higher level moral and ethical framework in play. Maybe these hardcore secular materialists really are trying to both fill and not acknowledge the God Shaped Hole.
They're just flailing around the fact suicide is scary and they'd rather not die, even if the world around them sucks. The self-preservation instinct is quite strong, and has nothing to do with God or higher level morals.
Hadad
1hr ago
It's great that they don't all chant death to America. In the event the nicer ones overthrow the local powers, perhaps relationships could be repaired! Hopefully they manage to do so soon, otherwise it won't matter. No amount of good men will justify letting Iran go nuclear.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Uh, twelver Shia Islam being more compatible with western civilization than Judaism or Sunni Islam is pretty plausible, but Iran is definitely not friendlier.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1hr ago
I'll put this here because I've never put it anywhere else and this has been a week of extreme not good for me.
One of my best High School buddies killed himself in November of 2022. There was a group of about five of us who were inseparable all of junior and senior year. College did college things and we start to drift apart, but would sometimes still catch up when people tended to come back to the hometown for Christmas or Thanksgiving. After I learned of "Dane's" (not his real name) suicide, it fell to me, for various reasons, to contact his High School girlfriend. She was also part of this friend group and everyone had bet money that she and Dane were going to get married. They really were a loving couple.
When I called her and relayed the news, her reaction was pretty predictable. Though they had split finally over 10 years prior, she was still quite upset though still in control of herself. After the initial shock had subsided she do the normal thing and asked me how I was feeling about it.
And that's when I exploded. I didn't break down. I didn't sob. I got intensely angry. Not at her, but at Dane. Because I saw that a saying I had heard before was true; suicide doesn't end pain, it just distributes it out. Here was a woman who had shared her first love with Dane and then gone about her life peacefully. Gutted. A friend group of four other dudes who perhaps lament the fact that we've fallen out of contact with each other is now brought back into contact via tragedy. The family opted for a family only funeral, so the four of us got on a Zoom with the intent of meeting up somewhere for an irish wake for Dane. But, 15 minutes in, we kind of looked at each other and collectively decided, "No, we don't actually want to fly to see each other like this." Dane's dead, and it's hard for me not to remember that with some anger.
I think the circumstances surrounding your cousin are much different. I was only adding a perspective on suicide that I think goes unsaid sometimes. It's a tragedy, of course. I don't know enough about the last two years of Dane's life to know what he was going through. There's some mystery, in fact, about the final few days, but that's for the family to know. Still, the fact remains that that final act wasn't final. All of the hurt is still out there floating in the corners of the hearts of so many other people now.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
I live in a- or in multiple- based subculture. One of them is extremely popular on the internet.
Yes people say things that are clownish or weird to normies. But does anyone deny that modern secular society has, uh, problems?
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Mexico may or may not have the state capacity to build domestic milindust, but it’s a world leader in heavy industry in general- thé challenge would be mostly getting it converted over to military spec as opposed to civilian stuff. They clearly can make things, drones probably aren’t any harder than trucks.
your dire, ever-postponed predictions
My prediction has been for some time now that the culture war will continue to escalate until we either find a way to leave each other alone, or until violence and chaos become self-sustaining. I do not think this prediction has been postponed, and I think the developments of the last four years have born that prediction out quite well. Our current society is still best described as a massive, distributed search for ways to hurt the outgroup as badly as possible without getting in too much trouble, and that search is observably advancing over time. If you disagree, give me the metrics by which you judge social cohesion, peace and prosperity to be increasing, and we can discuss it.
your proposed solutions
Which of my proposed solutions do you object to, specifically?
The woke have largely backed down from their most extreme positions during the summer of george, on BLM riots, covid restrictions, metoo nonsense, DEI, etc.
In what sense?
Race riots and zero-sum racial politics did not start with BLM. They ruined numerous major cities across the US in the 60s and 70s. They devastated the black community of LA in the 90s, blighting it for decades after due to the lingering economic and social effects. And after that mess, Clinton was supposed to have laid the issue to rest with his sista soulja moment, and then Obama was supposed to have paved the grave over for good with his two terms. And yet here we are, No Justice, No Peace, same as it ever was. Antifa-style gangs are still rioting in Blue strongholds, and their criminal violence is still being ignored, excused and actively enabled by major Blue institutions. Blues generally have moved to openly endorsing the murder of rival politicians, and we're seeing the normalization of straightforward political assassination. We're right back to the Days of Rage, because nothing actually changed.
Blues are on the back foot because we Reds dealt them a crippling and humiliating electoral defeat, and we're currently capitalizing on our victory by attacking their infrastructure directly. There's still several dozen million of them, and while the institutions they control are clearly in decline, they still wield considerable power and influence. There's going to be another election in a year, and then another presidential election two years after that, and there's no reason to believe that Progressivism will not come roaring back the moment they regain significant political power. All we have done they will attempt to undo, and they will aim to maximize the damage to our institutions in turn while the power is theirs. We're going after their institutions because we fundamentally do not believe the people running those institutions have changed their minds, and we are not confused about their approach to the wielding of political power.
BLM riots, covid restrictions, metoo/affirmative consent, DEI and so on are expressions of the contradictions within the Blue worldview. Those contradictions will keep right on expressing themselves whenever and wherever Blues secure power, and usually in these same forms or in forms very similar to them.
You did say you were going to coerce me, or else the woke (earlier you) would coerce me.
"Previous Me" was a standard-issue tits and beer liberal who believed strongly that coercion was unnecessary; I, like most of the other tits-and-beer liberals, was driven out of the Left when our erstwhile allies decided that free speech and tolerance were for pussies, actually, and that Liberals Got The Bullet Too. I now recognize that some level of coercion is necessary, because I've personally seen how the vacuum collapses, and how the supposed Liberal safeguards against such a collapse failed.
If you believe that people like me are just as bad as the Progressives, or perhaps worse, then go live with the Progressives and see how that goes. Either way, you need to accept that naive liberalism is not sustainable, and will inevitably decay.
Most Iranians are not religious and do not support the government, which sics foreign militias to oppress them. I speak Persian and have spent much time among them. Every couple of years there are massive riots, with thousands of deaths, as people fight back.
Even then, much of the Shia clergy opposes the regime; Khamenei isn't even a marja let alone the first among equals nor most popular religious leader within Iran itself. To concede a bit, at any rate they're friendlier than the Saudis and Emiratis, Shia are far more compatible and friendly with our world (but again, religiosity's similar to Czechia. Here's a survey giving 30% as Shia, only 40% as Muslim at all.)
strictly bans Western music and most other Western cultural output - @Hoffmeister25
Khatami relaxed that, already. Besides nowadays, everyone has a VPN. You can talk to plenty of Iranians right now, even with the attempted internet lock down, even if this isn't real. Personally, I'd only wish success to someone banning Disney, rap etc.
To react to your bailey, @The_Nybbler haven't many in this community opposed this government and arana imperii, ascribing modernity's ills to it?
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
‘They’re gonna build big, beautiful nukes Tucker, the best. We can’t let that happen.’
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
I’m not sure where the misreading of the Bible is here, because I’m not sure what the prophecy he’s going on actually says. It’s plausible he’s actually right about those verses.
The prophecies he’s referring to are mostly Christ’s foretelling of the destruction of the second temple- which, as you may recall, happened in 70 AD. Ted Cruz’s misreading is the claim that these are end times prophecies as opposed to a divine punishment for the deicide of Jesus.
LiberalRetvrn
1hr ago
Well it is a big problem that our discussion about the merits of bombing iran is being derailed into debates about the interpretation of a fairytale book. Cruz is openly admitting that his religious fantasies are a primary motivation for his foreign policy, which in my opinion should disqualify him from holding public office.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Iran is actually pretty friendly to apostolic Christianity, so long as it doesn’t proselytize. Hezbollah controlled Jerusalem would probably maintain Christian religious sites unde the current arrangement.
Dang, my optimism was misplaced here. I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to be engaging with, as "the alt-right is bad" isn't a very interesting thesis.
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