domain:abc.net.au
LiberalRetvrn
5mo ago
People did vote for this, but they shouldn't have been allowed to. This is democracy out of control, something that the constitution was carefully crafted to prevent. Musk is running around shutting down agencies with no accountability to the bureaucracy or the courts. I don't know whether anyone except Trump can actually stop him.
functor
9mo ago
Like their proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, their entire goal is to lose spectacularly and hope American and European leftists get extra mad at Israel for being competent at warfare
Their strategy is simple. Israel has the non ultra orthodox population of Wisconsin and the area of El Salvador. It is a tiny country with abysmal natural resources that is deeply fractured. Israel needs to be kept in a permanent state of crisis as this will effectively make the country infeasible. Israel is going to be in a permanent state of chaos.
Europe has nothing to gain by Israel creating another refugee crisis. The support for Israel is low in Europe.
Isreal is a country of neurotic people with abysmal school results. They aren't competent at war, they are just exceptionally brutal while fighting people who barely have weapons.
Rov_Scam
4mo ago
I have a proposition for you: We hand all political power in the US over to the blacks. As a white guy, you'll probably be forced to live in a designated area an hour outside a major city, where you'll be forced to take a bus in every day to do manual labor for ten bucks an hour. You will be barred from most public accommodations, and will have to get official permission before traveling anywhere outside your home; even going to work will require you to present proof that you actually have a job. Your own political power is nonexistent, and the government doesn't even pretend that you have anything resembling civil rights. The tradeoff is that the United States sees unprecedented GDP growth. Do you take this bargain?
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
4mo ago
Tangential: the 'total ideological capture of the academy' by the left is in significant part a product of right-wing anti-intellectualism. If you're going to adopt the position that anything but business, finance, and engineering are parasitic and quite possibly degenerate, it will not be surprising that a) existing academics shift away from you b) smart conservatives avoid academia* in favor of business, finance, and engineering and new academics overwhelmingly lean left c) a feedback loop emerges where conservatives and academics increasingly view each other with hostility because the former (largely correctly) believe the latter don't share their values and the latter (largely correctly) believe the former want to destroy them.
*(This is also why American conservatism is intellectually bankrupt and relies on Catholics, a small number of converts, and borrowing critiques from woke-critical centrists for basically all of their intellectual firepower)
Watching the disastrous discussion between Zelensky Trump and Vance I wonder how you guys here feel? The whole thing made me nauseous , treating an ally like that is disgusting , unpresidential and certainly geopolitcally inept. The EU-US relationship is not salvagable and at this point I would clap if US bases were emptied and NATO dissolved. Decouple the EU from the US as fast as possible and be independent. There is no way to talk sense into lunatics like Trump and Vance and Putin's control over them somehow seems to be absolute. What an absolute disaster. I know that there will be differing opinions here but at least most of you must agree that this is too much, or not , maybe Russian propaganda really has you convinced that Ukrainians are stealing money and started the war or some nonsense.
Nothing Ever Happens
DOGE is as good as dead. They’ve hit the wall.
Federal judge pauses deadline for federal workers to accept Trump’s resignation offer.
DOGE Staffer Resigns Over Racist Posts.
The one shining light of hope for true government reform was Elon Musk’s DOGE. They seemed to be making real progress. They may not have been loved, but they were feared, and Machiavelli said that’s enough.
Now they have lost the momentum. Stays and injunctions will start pouring in as district court judges stop fearing that their orders will be simply ignored.
If the deep state career civil service can draw blood with a trick as old as “drag-up old racist internet comments”, then DOGE really are toothless. No one will take them seriously anymore.
Maybe Congress can tap in…
Scott has an excellent new article that'll likely enrage at least a few people here: Some Practical Considerations Before Descending Into An Orgy Of Vengeance
Last week, the Libs of Tiktok successfully cancelled a random lady from Home Depot who called for the assassination of Trump. This prompted a lot of triumphalism from the right: "the time is finally here, now WE get to be the cancellers" they seemed to cheer.
There was a discussion on the Motte, and while there were some voices calling for restraint, many commenters demanded blood from the left. The real question was how much blood should be taken, with most responses landing somewhere between "massive" and "infinity". Some quotes include
-
From the same post as the above, "I don't give one flying fuck that these people are now getting served their own dog food."
-
"My heart has been turned to stone. No mercy, not before victory."
Scott's article gives 9 reasons why cheering for blood like this might not be the best strategy. They include:
- Nobody Learns Anything Useful From Being Persecuted
- This Isn’t Tit For Tat, It’s The Nth Round Of A Historical Dialectic
- You’re Not Debating Whether To Become Like Woke People, You’re Already Like Woke People
- Nobody Is Ever Both-Sides-ist Enough
- Most Cancellations Are Friendly Fire
- Cancellation Is The Enemy Of Competence
- No, Seriously, This Is A Terrible Decision
- Don’t Go Mad With Power Until You Actually Get The Power
- There’s Probably Other Options
Nerdy men were the first to get access to internet pornography, and for a while it was associated with them. Now guys in the slums of Nigeria are watching it on smartphones. Nerds were the first to have access to online conspiracy content. Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams! Muh Magic Bullet! Now the same conspiracy stuff is hitting young women. From an NYT report about a women's conference:
Rhaelynn Zito is one such conservative convert. Ms. Zito is a 25-year-old nurse who lives in Raleigh, N.C. In 2023, she said she had a real belly flop of a year. She went through a breakup, lost a family member and was searching for purpose outside work. Ms. Zito began listening to Ms. Clark, whose Turning Point USA show is often ranked among the top ten of health podcasts on Spotify.
Listening to Ms. Clark, Ms. Zito said, changed her life. She started a Bible study group, cut down her drinking and stopped dating casually as she focused on finding a husband. She stopped using birth control, taking up a natural family planning method recommended on Ms. Clark's show, and became dubious about abortions and vaccines. She no longer identifies as a feminist.
{sinp}
After the 2024 election, when young men swung markedly to Mr. Trump, pundits and political operatives began a frenzied and almost anthropological analysis of the "manosphere," the ecosystem of podcasters, like Joe Rogan and Theo Von, who nudged young men toward the Republican vote. Less in focus were the young women — a demographic that is still reliably left-leaning, but whose support for Mr. Trump also increased, according to post-election polling. Some were also swayed by what has been labeled a "womanosphere" of uber popular podcasters blending lifestyle advice and political polemics.
Many of the young women at the Turning Point conference were drawn to the event because conservative women influencers had helped them remake their lives: start dating seriously and stop eating ultra-processed foods, start taking supplements and stop using birth control. The Young Women's Leadership Summit, which marked its tenth anniversary, drew its largest numbers yet this year: roughly 3,000 women, up from around 2,000 last year and under 500 in 2015, at its inception. The event, some attendees noted, was light on discussions about policy — immigration raids, trade wars — but heavy on dating, parenting and nutrition advice.
Women are more hostile to COVID vaccination, perhaps reflecting a female urge to make politics revolve around their bodies.
Many people here have been asking about my politics: it's actually remarkably simple: I want the old America back where children were born within marriage, didn't try to change their gender, and got all the vaccines their pediatrician recommended.
To Rightists with daughters reading this: are you concerned that they might encounter "natural family planning" on the internet and really f*** up their life?
General poll of opinions here, since I don't see much conversation about it - either because of news bubbles or general disinterest in discussing the ugly side of authoritarianism.
Main query: Are the blackbagging tactics of ICE a necessary evil, a dangerous overstep, or some nuanced in-between?
Genuinely, I don't have a steelman for blackbagging tactics. Right now, ICE is targeting a certain type of "undesirable", namely, allegedly undocumented illegal immigrants, and appear to have carte blanche to apprehend anyone who disrupts that process. But the hallmark of authoritarianism is to expand the definition of "undesirable" to include your political opponents - and if blackbagging undesirables is already palatable, then you can blackbag your political opponents. It's a matter of convenience that political enemies are already attempting to disrupt the blackbagging of undocumented illegal immigrants - it makes that leap that much easier were it to happen. How convenient as well that there's now an entire organizational apparatus gaining valuable experience in how to make people disappear on US soil? They may look like mall cops who are dressed for the paintball arena for now, but if they happened to get any of that DoD money...
Blackbagging by ICE seems to be an extrajudicial process by design, as a flex of the unitary executive theory that the judiciary exists only to serve the will of the executive. The judiciary is viewed as uncooperative and painted as obstructive, despite being intentionally hamstrung by the right wing of congress that has refused for several presidential terms to pass any immigration reform despite bipartisan efforts. One doesn't have to look very hard at all to find red tribe voices foaming at the mouth to declare enemies of the state: official mouthpieces of the current administration, senators, congresspeople. History rhymes, and I know enough of the current admin has read Carl Schmitt to recognize the paths that are available to them at this point if they happen to be hungry for power.
Ending query: Assuming (for the sake of this question) that the end goal of this administration is to establish a type of authoritarianism where people are kidnapped and disappeared because of vocal opposition to the regime, what should be the response by the opposition that would want to prevent that? History buffs, what are the best examples of countries barely recovering from the brink of authoritarianism?
Edit: I appreciate the responses, there was actually quite a bit of variety which was nice to read. I came away with a steelman (which I didn't have originally) which is that the theatrics of ICE is meant to intimidate illegal immigrants. In effect, it would seem like that would select for immigrants who are reckless and fearless (yikes), or immigrants who face such extreme danger in their home country that even Twitter videos of brown people being tackled by men in masks doesn't slow them down (these desperate people would probably be considered "authentic" refugees by most leftists, and not just "economic migrants").
HAPPENING NOW: ISRAEL LAUNCHES MASSIVE ATTACK AGAINST IRANESE NUCLEAR FACILITIES—AIR RAID SIRENS HEARD ALL ACROSS ISRAEL—MASSIVE AIR ACTIVITY OVER IRAQ-SYRIA BORDER—MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS CONFIRMED IN TEHRAN INCLUDING COLLAPSED BUILDING—IRANIAN FIGHTER JETS SEEN TAKING OFF FROM AIRSTRIPS NEAR TEHRAN—BALLISTIC MISSILE LAUNCHES REPORTED IN IRAN—REPORTS OF EXPLOSIONS AT US BASES IN IRAQ—MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS HEARD NEAR IRAN’S NATANZ NUCLEAR FACILITY—VIDEO FOOTAGE SHOWING NATANZ NUCLEAR FACILITY BURNING—UNCONFIRMED REPORTS THAT THE CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE IRANIAN MILITARY HAS BEEN KILLED IN A TARGETED STRIKE
—Inb4 source
—Inb4 “low effort post ban” Additional facts and my thoughts will be added as the situation develops
You're missing some important context.
It is a long running conspiracy theoery open secret that the Democrats and the CIA have been (are?) in the tank with Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Taliban Et Al. actively working against US/Western interests in the name of "decolonization" and that the primary role of USAID was to "launder" food, fuel, arms, and other forms of material support allocated to these groups while also as serving as a slush fund for various woke causes and NGOs. Ever wonder who was funding all thos migrant caravans? The reason the current administrator presumably doesn't want to turn over the books to Rubio is that is that they don't want the opposition (Ie the MAGA crowd) to know where the proverbial bodies are buried or who to subpoena.
Its not worth thinking about any of this at the object level. The things you are interacting with on social media are not human beings, they are AIs programmed to hurt you with weaponised language. By engaging with them you're allowing them to set the terms and tempo of the debate, and their only goal is to prevent real debate from happening because it's their best strategic option right now.
The words are a cloud of ink. There is no "real" message it's possible to engage with, and the people responsible just need to be supressed and incapacitated .
Just having to wade through their posts spamming a board and wasting time thinking about them is an attack on you, just as much as when they ddos a wrongthinker's website. Flooding the zone with DARVO ragebait bullshit is just an effective counter to drag the discussion away from people being burned alive on the subway, which they can't defend on the merits.
If you want the purest demo of this possible, go to /pol/ and see if there's any threads worth responding to. It's all ragebait, disruption, shilling, trolling, etc.
White power
/s
Happy Diwali to my man J.D. Vance. In which, a Colored pagan gives white people more reasons to feel superior. Now with conclusive genetic data to back it.
In Scott's 'links for November' he shares:
Pervasive findings of directional selection realize the promise of ancient DNA to elucidate human adaptation. Scientists took DNA samples from human remains in Europe dating from 10,000 BC to present, and found that genes for high IQ and other positive traits have been getting more common during that time. (image) (link to paper)
Curious pattern matchers will find another identical graph in the paper. The intelligence graph coincides perfectly with....drum roll please...... yes, it's white skin and hair color.
I thought I was cherry picking. But nope. No other graph superimposes this nicely with intelligence. (other graphs)
I'm surprised white supremacists didn't pounce on this immediately. I don't expect them to read. But still.....
Now what, 2000 more words about a stupid graph ? Yes ! But I'm more interested in trends within the intelligence graph over time, rather than what it means for white faces and blonde hair. The intelligence graph has inflection points which leads me to divide European history into distinct eras based around these points. Let's talk about these eras instead.
Reverse engineering history from kinks in intelligence genomic graphs :
The intelligence graph has a few distinct trend reversals. Those key reversals / phases eye balled with 250 yr tolerance on either side are:
- 7000 - 4500 sharp rise
- 4500 - 3500 BC slow stagnation
- 3500-3000 BC - sharp drop
- 3000 - 1500 BC - restoration of steady recovery
- 1500BC - 500 BC steady rise
- 500BC - 1200AD steady decline
- 1200+ AD steady increase
What (spurious?) co-relations can we draw ?
7000 - 4500 BC:
The sharp rise corresponds to the Neolithic expansion. Agriculture spread and Near-East farmers started replacing native hunter gatherers.
3500- 3000 BC:
Sharp drop coincides with the Yamnaya expansion. It is in full swing, going deep into Europe. Big L for Skin heads. Aryans made them stupider.
1500BC - 500 BC:
Steady rise coincides with Bronze age collapse. But, not major genetic changes. This makes sense in context of the white-skin preference graph. It doesn't reflect any major change during that time. Might have been a purely cultural change or noisy data.
500BC - 1200AD steady decline:
I like this one. The Greek and Romans did not perform much population replacement, so the steadiness in genetics is to be expected. Germanic, Viking, Slavic & Celtic people performed some 'population replacement', but there isn’t one inciting genetic factor. On the other hand, This steady decline coincides with the continent’s biggest cultural phenomenon : Christianity. Another L for the skin heads.
1200AD++ steady increase:
Turns out, there's minimal lasting genetic impact owing to mongols or black death. So, I'll discard them. This increase appears cultural. Renaissance happens in 12th century, the technology hockey-stick begins and with it what I expect was positive selection for IQ.
If my (potentially spurious) correlations are to be believed, ancestral pillars of white identity (Yamnaya Aryans and early Christians) suppressed intelligence than promoting it. I'd love to see a global intelligence graph over the same period,. That way I can view relative impact instead of absolutes.
"There are 3 kind of lies : Lies, Damn lies and Statistics"
In closing, was whiteness good for European intelligence ? Idk, I remain confused.
P.S: Yes, I am extrapolating from one paper and drawing correlations over correlations. Don't take this as gospel. Please.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
8mo ago
If you need a timeout until after election day, we can oblige.
Stop doing this.
Catsnakes_
8mo ago
This is uncharitable, boo-outgroup Trump-sneering thinly disguised as "both sides suck" complaining. You should be ashamed of this comment and go vent your spleen some other place rather than bringing down the level of discourse here, especially given that you are a mod.
Outlaw83
10mo ago
So, there's some talk downthread about Springfield, Ohio, Haitian immigrants and such. Putting aside I guarantee in the late 19th century there was in fact plenty of examples of massive population changes, even in more rural parts of the country. Ironically, many of the same people who put forth those population changes are now the ones scared of immigration, so in 50 years, as is American tradition, these Haitian immigrants will be saying we shouldn't be letting in the Bangladeshi's or whomever.
But, the interesting thing is the questions about "why" anybody puts up with them and well, at least according to local business owners, because they're more likely to show up to do the job and not fail a drug test than the righteous pure American's currently living there.
https://youtube.com/watch?si=nke3DETnGvcaAHE4&v=FA80DOcJnu8&feature=youtu.be - Youtube video
https://x.com/otis_reid/status/1833578554778374462 - Quote from the factory owner.
Of course, 2016 J.D. Vance would probably agree with this factory owner about the get up 'n' go of this socioeconomic group of people instead of defending them from economic competition from supposedly mentally deficient Haitians.
Now, to quote a lot of Twitter, it is true the Haitians are ruining that community's traditions, by actually getting to work and not showing up high.
aeqno
11mo ago
The Harris campaign simply never misses.
It's telling that in two weeks MAGA went from assured of total victory to stolen election mode:
https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1819726527141208279
As urban youth would say, they shook.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
3mo ago
I can only say that engaging with the Chinese, and with people like you, has gradually convinced me that White People (Hajnali European stock specifically) are basically jumped-up serfs, the confused lower caste of prawns from District 9, with little more to offer to the world sans stale kanging and hollow, corporate-coded pretense of “soul” that, if it ever existed, resided in your currently extinct owners. You don't even notice my point about simple economics and logistics, so lost you are in your racial superiority masturbation. But of course those issues are related.
if Japan were in China's position instead
But it isn't, and you are largely responsible for that, because your previous generation had the exact same attitude towards the Japanese. Deaths from overwork, rigid hierarchy, soulless collectivist automatons cheating and copying to flood the markets and dispossess our Christian Germanic workers – this can't be allowed, can it? Oh, what a pity that now that we know them better, Japan is a geriatric country of no ambition, that mainly produces anime to give you some respite from the toxic antihuman sludge of your own media. (Presumably this is the fault of Joos. Somehow for all your natural nobility of spirit you are not capable of resisting a tiny tribe of natural wordcels. At least the Chinese managed to overthrow the Manchu).
Regrettably, China is 10 times larger and the same tricks won't work.
A change in American economic policy sent global markets into a tailspin, so objectively speaking, America is in fact a big deal.
Yes, you can do a great deal of damage to humanity. This is akin to the bafflingly swinish line of argument that “China needs us more than we need them, because they need to sell their valuable manufactured goods to someone; our consumption is more valuable than production”. We shall see how well this philosophy works.
Raising the Price of Admission
I find myself immensely frustrated by Trump's recent moves to cut down on immigration, especially replacing the EB5 with his new golden ticket scheme.
I've always wanted to move to the States, but by virtue of being Indian, and in a profession with strict regulatory requirements, it was never easy. As of right now, I can't sit for the USMLE if I wanted to, but I believe that is a problem my uni could solve, unfortunately I'm locked into the UK for at least 3 more years and don't have the time to breathe down their necks.
If I wanted to spend $1 million for the old EB5, I'd probably have to sell a significant fraction of my familial assets, and they're not mine yet, I have a sibling and parents to think of. The fact that we even have that much, when my father made $50k at the peak of his career as a OBGYN surgeon, represents a lifetime of my parents being frugal and living beneath their means. My dad started out from scratch, a penniless refugee, and all his life he worked tirelessly to make sure his kids wouldn't have to work as hard as he did. To a degree, he's succeeded. I nearly make as much as he does, but that's virtue of grinding my ass off to escape India. I had to settle for the UK, whereas I'd much rather be in the States.
The EB-5 program already functioned as a high barrier to entry, requiring not just capital but also the ability to invest in ways that met the job creation criteria. By raising the price to $5 million, the U.S. is effectively signaling that it no longer wants "entrepreneurial upper-middle-class" immigrants - it only wants the ultra-wealthy. The problem, is that the truly ultra-wealthy already have multiple options. The US is relatively unique in dual-taxation, and has heavier taxes overall when compared to some of the alternatives. They can buy citizenship in other countries (Malta, St. Kitts, etc.), take advantage of residence-by-investment programs in the EU, or just maintain an arsenal of visas that allow them to live anywhere they please. The U.S. loses out on exactly the kind of people who were willing to put down roots and contribute significantly to the economy while still needing the opportunities that U.S. citizenship provides.
If Trump (or any administration) wanted a truly meritocratic system, they should be auctioning off a limited number of economic immigrant slots each year. That would at least allow market forces to determine the actual value of U.S. residency. A points-based system, like Canada’s or Australia’s, could also make more sense: prioritizing skilled professionals over sheer wealth. A million already strongly filters would-be immigrants. Five is exorbitant, especially if it's a flat sum.
(Let's leave aside the other requirements, such as running a business that creates a certain number of jobs)
Jevon's paradoxmakes us expect that increasing the price of a good by 5 times will not 5x the revenue. It'll decrease it in expectation. If Trump prizes himself as a businessman, this should be clear to him.
Even the abolition of birthright citizenship strikes me as a violation of the American ethos. It was certainly being abused, anchor babies being a case in point, but when even green cards are this hard to get, prospective skilled migrants greatly appreciate the peace of mind that their kids are entitled to citizenship provides.
End it for illegal immigrants if you have to, why lump in everyone else there legitimately? I wouldn't mind people using their visitor visas to get a fast one in being debarred too, but I look at the current state of affairs with great dismay.
At any rate, I'm not an American. I do wish I was, and my impression is that most of you would be happy to have me. Well, I'm used to life being rough, and the UK isn't the worst place I could be. I still think that even from an absolutely monetary point of view, this is a bad plan.
I hope I've made a decent case for why you're not getting much out filtering the immigrants for quality at that point, and the ones who are that loaded are probably not nearly as keen. They're easily Global Citizens for whom nationality is a formality.
Well, I'm still going to see if I manage to figure out the USMLE thing by the time my training in the UK ends, but there must be thousands of skilled immigrants in a similar boat, just noticing a rather significant leak in it. Then they're confronted by a sign at Eliis Island that just any ocean-crossing vessel won't do, they need a yacht. We don't deserve to be clubbed in with those who break the rules.
"Who started WWII" is more ambiguous than that. WWII started with England and France's declaration of war on Germany. Germany had a reasonable casus belli on Poland, and England was pressuring Poland not to negotiate with Germany. Even more important are the many peace proposals Germany offered England, which entailed Germany fully pulling out of France, and Churchill not only rejected them but even hid them from the public. Ultimately Churchill and the United States would set the only war aim as Unconditional Surrender, which is what ultimately led to the mass murder and destruction.
Furthermore the tall tale of Germans tricking millions of Jews into walking into gas chambers that had been disguised as shower rooms is a fantasy meant to justify this one-sided WWII narrative. Incidentally, Grok 3 is the first LLM I've seen explicitly take the Revisionist side of a core argument regarding that narrative, even going so far as to criticize the Narrative's sole reliance on witness testimony over any other form of evidence. Also first that has accurately summarized the mainstream position on an issue, accurately summarized the Revisionist position on an issue, and explicitly concurred with the Revisionists that the "official claim is not plausible under scrutiny." The days of that narrative are numbered, and other WWII Revisionism is going to come along with the collapse of that narrative.
Germany's war on Poland provides no justification for England and France to ally with the Soviet Union in a catastrophic war aim of unconditional surrender on Germany.
On that note, normalize the Roman Salute. It's just a cool pose. It evokes emotions in people and that makes it powerful.
Lizzardspawn
6mo ago
I really hate Zelensky's attitude that the world owes him or Ukraine and makes demands. Dude is a fucking beggar. He should behave like one.
DirtyWaterHotDog
8mo ago
“You can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors. You know, eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard.” ― Hillary Dawg Clinton to Pakistan
Trump and his lackeys have fed conspiracy theories for a full decade, which are now coming back to bite them in the ass.
It's a familiar story. The radicalization of Bangladesh and the Maldives are examples from the last two years. You can't give ammunition to the crazies and then be surprised when the crazies start shooting (figuratively and literally).
The deep state isn't some nefarious ingroup. It's a useful umbrella term to capture the emergent ideology of DC's upper-middle-class bureaucracy. But that’s it. It personifies the incompetence inherent in all bureaucracy. It is as faceless as it is boring. However, Trump's rendition of the deep state is akin to a singular eldritch horror that seeks to destroy all that we hold dear. In this narrative, the deep state is held responsible for all of America's problems, and Trump is heralded as the savior.
Of course the crazies ate it up. And given Trump's recent behavior, of course they're turning against him.
It's a uniquely American problem. High trust is usually synonymous with the first world. High trust and civic sense drive efficiencies that help the first world stay ahead. First-world Europeans and East Asians do not have this deep-rooted suspicion towards authority. Even functioning third-world nations have sweeping rations and welfare (low quality as it may be) to help with survival. So, the citizenry retains a base level of goodwill towards institutions.
America, since its inception, may be the only first-world country that's remained low-trust. The Second Amendment and the union-of-states structure start things off with suspicion between smaller organizations and national organizations. As time went on, you got the Wild West, stranger danger, dilapidated inner cities, and more recently, drug addiction-driven homelessness. Can't trust anyone. Usually, this would be unstable. But America has so much money that it brute forces its inefficiencies away. The entire American debt and insurance industry is propped up as a band-aid solution for all the missing trust.
In such a zeitgeist, violent conspiracy nuts become a unique failure mode for American society. Somewhere along the way, these kinds of conspiracy nuts are beaten down into compliant citizens. But not here. The country feeds this distrust, through its scriptures and decentralization. Now the nuts are crazier than ever, they have guns, and they're pointing to the source of their distrust: national leaders. With the disempowerment of pacifying institutions such as mainstream media and traditional churches, the nuts continue spiraling. America is dry tinder, and Trump is a whole-ass blowtorch. For the sake of this nation, I hope he loses and quietly fucks off to Mar-a-Lago for good.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
9mo ago
When Trump was first elected President, one common meme was for people to say and post, "NOT MY PRESIDENT." Hillary Clinton called Trump an "illegitimate President." Would you say that Democrats "accepted the results of the election" in that case? Because my read is that they very much did not, indeed still have not. Why didn't they accept the outcome of that election? What could the government have done, to nudge them toward greater acceptance?
There’s a fundamental difference between being bitter about an election result and actually thinking the result was actually illegitimate. I will of course grant you that occasionally the language can appear superficially similar, but the difference is real and very important. Democrats absolutely accepted the result of the election. The process was not in question, and this was telling in the actual actions taken: they thought Russia meddled a bit too much and so the solution is policy to stop it happening again.
Hell, even after 2000, Democrats still by and large accepted the result despite some very potent arguments that they had been robbed by some uncontrollable aspect of the administrative state (broadly). Sure, you had a decent chunk of individuals who continued or even still continue to believe the election result was rigged or undemocratic or whatever, but this didn’t translate to the political class, and it didn’t lead to a fundamental dispute of elections more broadly, and in the actions, Florida got its shit together and fixed a lot of the issues for subsequent elections.
The immediate reaction of Trump and his allies was not merely bitterness but action that should be disturbing to all. They tried both literally and rhetorically to do an end run around the actual election and legal processes to corruptly (mens rea according to the evidence we’ve seen) subvert the actual election, irrespective of fact.
Do you see the difference? “Let’s fix it” is of a fundamentally different character than “let’s change it”. The former recognizes that setbacks happen in politics — even unfair ones! And it recognizes that there will be other chances and that the system is more important than ego. But the second, oh boy, it’s shortsighted and selfish and threatens the whole thing. It’s kind of like a marital fight. There is a line between some things you might say to your spouse in anger, and some things which should literally never be said, because they can’t be taken back and might threaten the entire marriage. With the assumption that the marriage is a good one - here, the assumption that the system of democratic elections is a good one.
It’s not at all clear what kind of system Trump would put in its place, which is PLENTY worrying in and of itself, but I have a very hard time imagining it being better than our current one, and I likewise have I think very good reasons to believe that even if you think for example that the Justice Department needs reform and fairness, Trump is probably one of the worst people to actually do so. That Trump’s personal motivations largely aligned with the country’s in his first term wasn’t an accident but was at least in some sense lucky - but I’m not convinced this can be taken for granted in a second term to the same degree.
ebrso
11mo ago
I lost my beloved younger brother a few years ago to drug addiction. He was 35. He struggled for years (and I mean really struggled) to stop using heroin, with some periods of success. When he was using drugs, he would lie and steal. But even during those times, he was always a very generous person when he could be. He was very sensitive (in some ways, I think this was actually a burden for him), and he made friends easily. He was funny and smart (which was perhaps another burden). He had very serious depression and anxiety his entire life. I'm sure my parents will never recover from the loss.
My point here is that many of the drug addicts you despise are actually struggling desperately. Most have had difficult lives. Some have loved ones that care deeply about them and want to see them get healthy. Others don't have anyone in the world who cares about them, either because they never had a family, or because their families died, or because they alienated them through their behaviors.
There are important conversations to be had about whether drug addiction is more of a choice or more of a disease. And there are conversations to be had about the balance between community interests and the interests of those with substance abuse disorders, and how community burdens should be fairly distributed. And there are conversations about which policies or actions actually help individuals with substance abuse disorders, versus which policies are counter-productive because they just enable or encourage these disorders.
But calling someone "dysfunctional scum" or "druggie" or "biowaste" isn't the way to start these conversations. That's the kind of language people use to dehumanize others. I think you should be ashamed of yourself.
LOL, oh no, this forum. And it's many diverse views. So diverse the mods keep contriving new and creative reasons to ban me for mine.
This forum has more or less outlived it's usefulness, and effectively radicalized me against it's own principles. All I see anymore are liars using arguments as soldiers to trick the other side into not believing their own lying eyes.
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