domain:mattlakeman.org
non_radical_centrist
3d ago
Why should an opoid addicted piece of white trash who was born to two parents who were white trash deserve American citizenship more than a Venezualen who fled socialism and crossed the Darien Gap just to participate in the greatest nation on Earth? That's purposefully inflammatory I know, but I do strongly believe that immigrants to America will rarely make natives lives worse, and often will in fact improve their lives through providing stuff like cheap farm labour. That's not an universal law, I look at Europe and see how terrible they are at integrating immigrants and wouldn't propose they open their borders because I don't think they could handle it. But immigrants are an amazing source of strength for America, one that should be harnessed.
TitaniumButterfly
2d ago
You call it slavery, I call it animal husbandry. It worked just fine and while cruelty to animals sucks, domestication is not evil. Often it's a pretty great deal for the animals. Nature is harsh and wild animals are generally worse to each other than their human masters.
My ancestors are at fault inasmuch as they failed to adequately anticipate the fatal flaw in voting-based government, which is the incentive to expand the franchise to those who should never have had it in exchange for political support and dominance over the responsible opponents who refuse to stoop so low.
Skibboleth
2d ago
the left has devalued American citizenship
What does that even mean (aside from the obvious white supremacist angle)? Citizenship is not a scarce resource.
I mean a Venezuelan gang member who's here illegally is every bit as American as you, who was born in Western Michigan, so yes, I'm quite aware of that.
What does this mean?
Anchor babies, birthright citizenship, all of that must go.
Opposing birthright citizenship is contrary to the ancient traditions of our people and thus unAmerican. But then, Erik Prince is a Dutch fifth columnist and not to be trusted.
sarker
Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
3d ago
As far as I can tell, the primary beneficiaries of "disproportionate impact" policies and hiring of "marginalized people" are black people. The people advocating and voting for these policies are white people.
How and when did this come about? Well, affirmative action dates back to the sixties, and was well underway in the nineties. As for where all these black people came from, if I remember your family history correctly, I am afraid you will have to blame your ancestors.
TitaniumButterfly
2d ago
They weren't a problem when they were slaves. Your ancestors fighting to free them are why we're in this mess.
functor
2d ago
Peter zeihan should put his money where his mouth is and demonstrate how stable Detroit and Atlanta are by riding through them on a bicycle at 1 am.
sliders1234
5d ago
The issue with this is Perry probably did just see the chance and killed him for fun. It’s just that the victim was shitting on the commons to an extent that he opened the door for someone to kill him because he didn’t like the victim.
Perry likely knew that the victim was cosplaying revolutionary and wasn’t going to execute him at any high non-neglible probability.
In ordinary life when someone exposes themselves that you can do something bad to them and get away with it we usually choose not to do something bad to them. In this case the victim broke public trust to an extent that people are less forgiving. He paid the asshole tax.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
6d ago
God.
Paxton represents everything I dislike about this state. Setting aside his little scandal, he’s a shameless partisan who grandstands whenever he gets the chance. Every AG statement just drips with condescension and/or righteous anger at the opposition. I suppose, given our political climate, that makes him a savvy political operator.
While we have various stupid and offensive laws, I can’t really blame him for enforcing them. But I do not look forward to seeing how he operates with a more deadlocked legislature. Especially if Trump is looking for opportunities to get even.
BurdensomeCount
Singapore is the only country that learned the correct lessons from the British Empire.
3d ago
· Edited 3d ago
Not having your demented mother-in-law around the house: Priceless
A simple question then: Why would you marry your wife then if you can't stand your mother in law? Sounds like the western courtship and mate selection process has some issues if mother in law problems are so common. Remember when you marry someone you're not just choosing your spouse but rather you're choosing your inlaws too. We also have lots of mother in law issues in our cultures to the point that the wife/mother in law tussle is one of the staples soap writers use for their dramas, but it's never seen as OK to throw out your elders and generally eventually people find a compromise all the parties are happy with.
Plus your children will get 25% of their DNA from your mother in law, which means they'll probably be somewhat like her. Choosing a mother in law you dislike is indirectly choosing your children to be more predisposed towards traits you dislike compared to a mother in law you like.
Also you do realise that some day you will be the parent in law getting booted out of the family home to be "cared for" by strangers, yes?
All this reminds me of the opining lines to Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans":
Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through his own orchard. “Stop!” cried the groaning old man at last, “Stop!” I did not drag my father beyond this tree.”
jeroboam
2d ago
Since no one's posting...
The dollar is done dude. It was nice while it lasted. But I believe that the U.S. dollar's reign as a universal reserve currency has ended. Over time fewer countries will hold U.S. treasuries and do business in U.S. dollars.
But why?
The dollar is a bad investment. How would you feel about holding a currency that is controlled by the government of a foreign country? You'd feel pretty bad if that country is $35 trillion in debt and will need to print trillions more every year to have any hope of even making the interest payments.
China is dumping U.S. treasuries and buying gold instead. It just makes financial sense.
U.S. treasuries are suffering their worst bear market possibly ever. Let's say you bought TLT (a long-term treasury ETF) at its peak in 2020. Today, you'd be down by more than 50% in real terms. What is supposed to be a "safe" investment becomes very unsafe in the presence of inflation.
The long-term picture isn't much better. Since the end of the gold standard in 1971, gold has outperformed U.S. treasuries. Simply buying and holding a lump of rock is better than holding the debt of the U.S. government. And the government was actually in good financial health for most of those years, unlike now.
The U.S. is not a trustworthy partner. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia held about $600 billion in currency and gold reserves. About half of those reserves, $300 billion, were held in the West. After the invasion, those reserves were frozen. Now, they are now likely to be given to Ukraine.
Because of this, there is no reason for a country like China (or any other country for that matter) to store their wealth in the West, or to hold U.S. dollar-denominated assets. It's all conditional on U.S. allegiance.
For most countries, trade with China is more valuable than trade with the U.S. China now dominates most of the world's industries, and the trend continues to point in that direction. Third world countries often have much stronger trade ties with China than they do the U.S. They export natural resources and import Chinese goods. Increasingly, they can do without U.S. goods and services. Do what we say or otherwise you can't have our, um, Microsoft Excel licenses...
As this process strengthens, China will be able to lean on these countries to do business in Yuan, or perhaps in some resource-demoninated currency.
Okay, so the dollar is done. What comes next? Probably nothing major. I don't think that the Yuan will become the reserve currency, or that we'll move back to the gold standard (although global reserves will be held increasingly in gold). But the U.S. dollar will no longer be the uncontested reserve currency. The world will once again be multipolar, with the U.S. just one of multiple competing forces, and not necessarily the strongest one.
In the long run (10+ years) I expect gold to significantly outperform treasuries.
fartVader
3d ago
Anchor babies, birthright citizenship, all of that must go.
This shows a shallow understanding of the US immigration system.
Here are the common ways you can get a visa -> green card -> citizenship:
- Illegal immigration -> anchor baby -> wait 25 years -> Green card (400k? closest thing to stats)
- Refugees (150k/yr) (relatively low by historic standards)
- Lottery (50k/yr) (constant number since 1995.)
- High skilled visas -> green card (Green card sponsorship is rare unless you're making 6 figures) (300k/year)
- Marriage and minor dependents (600k/yr)
So which of these do you disapprove of, how much lower should each of them be ?
No one likes illegal immigration, so that's a moot point. The rest seem to be more so about identifying legitimate cause (actual marraige, real refugees, real need for immigrant labor) than the nature of the visa itself.
KMC
5d ago
Wikipedia (yes, I know)
If you knew, you wouldn't have brought it up in the first place. It wouldn't have even occurred to you to look there, and if you chose to look there anyway, you would have known that it was precisely backwards.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
The problem there is that going after voter fraud in a non-grandstanding way means he actually needs to name names and have evidence. You can't just say there was MASSIVE FRAUD in Detroit or wherever; you have to actually say here is a corrupt election official and here's exactly what he did and here's the evidence to prove it. Most of the voter fraud stuff in 2020 was more along the lines of "I don't like the looks of this", which doesn't exactly help you out too much when it comes to a prosecution.
philosoraptor
6d ago
Despite the "lock her up" rhetoric, Trump didn't actually try to lock Hilary up.
That's not magnanimity. At best it's baseline, expected behaviour. If you find that to be impressive coming from Trump, that seems like a meaner thing to say about him than even most of his leftie foes tend to use, at least the ones that are at all grounded in reality. (And I say that as one of those foes, though increasingly I'm only "leftie" by the standards of this place.)
SSCReader
5d ago
Does it? Below someone said that because Foster had his gun angled down, but could have pointed it directly at Perry and fired in an instant that Perry was correct to have felt threatened. But we have video of Rittenhouse wandering around gun pointed low where he also could have brought it up and fired at any of the people around him.
If one of those is a threat then surely the other is, even if we removed them from protest situations and just had them standing on the street minding their own business.
Now i'd say neither should really be taken as a threat in and of themselves granted carrying the rifle around is legal. Because it would mean that we have a tension where a legal activity also grants enough of a threat to createthe right to legal lethal self-defence, which just seems problematicly circular.
SSCReader
5d ago
It's interesting because the guy with the rifle was in some sense doing a right wing coded thing. Open carrying a rifle, which in Texas is legal. It's been a left wing talking point that this in and of itself should be considered a threatening act (see Rittenhouse, K). Which means in other circumstances it could quite well have been the case that the right was outraged by the shooting, as open carrying a rifle in and of itself should not be grounds to be seen as threat of violence, that justifies self-defence. In fact if Foster had shot and killed Perry as he was driving a car towards a protest he would have been in the Rittenhouse position! Arguing he brought a rifle to the protest to defend against just such an attack.
Which is why (as with Rittenhouse) the case hinged on whether the rifle was pointed at someone and if this itself constitutes a threat. Only without clear video in this case to show one way or another.
There is a narrative here where Rittenhouse was found not guilty (correctly) because he did not point his gun at someone and therefore was not threatening, and Foster also did not point his gun at someone so was not threatening and was thus murdered by Perry. In that case the left would have a case to argue that they did indeed play by the rules more than the right. Rittenhouse was acquitted. The jury set aside all the political stuff and acquitted him. Perry was found guilty then a political intervention happened. That's how I would contrast the two stories if I were still going to bat for the left in a political sense at least. The left left (hah) it up to the judicial system to decide the right (hah!) outcome, the right refused to do that and blatantly freed a convicted murderer. Might have some bad optics for squishy moderates. But of course plays well with those already convinced. Unlikely to make a difference in Texas, but might have some play if pushed nationally, perhaps.
I suppose to turn the discussion back to you, if you had clear video that Foster did not point his gun at Perry, and was just walking around, would you accept that he like Rittenhouse did not actually threaten someone and thus Perry shooting him was murder?
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
6d ago
Jesus. I made the mistake of reading the whole thing. This poor woman was indoctrinated well before her critical thinking was up and running (like most religions, they've got to get you early because it doesn't work once you can think), and internalized all of her mother's insane religious rants. She thinks she didn't because she did little acts of teenage rebellion, but she did. Now she is so fucked up about the whole thing she is doing only fans. JFC... Many woman enthusiastically enjoy sex in a healthy way. This poor gal is mentally ill.
Rov_Scam
9hr ago
If only the United States had the foresight to institute such a system a century and a half ago, before the immigrant problem got out of hand. Then they could have just used my great-grandfather's labor in the mines until he decided to retire (coincidentally right around the time Pittsburgh Seam coal started running low), and then deported him back to Galicia just in time for the German invasion. Another great-grandfather would have been shipped back to Calabria some time in the late 40s or early 50s. I don't want to think what the consequences for your family would have been. I'm not sure what the downside was of their being allowed to stay.
cjet79
18hr ago
I'm someone that generally sees the two parties as pretty close to each other in actual policy positions. Even if they loudly scream about how different they are.
Not my random opinion. It's what is predicted by public choice economics for a first past the post / two-party system. The party with the median voter wins, so that is where party behavior trends towards.
Lots of people here like to complain about the Democrats being in favor of open borders, but as someone who is actually in favor of open borders I mostly see the Democrats as ok with the current immigration situation, but not interested in opening up things any further.
If you think we have open borders right now .. I think we disagree on too much of base reality and we won't get very far talking with each other.
All of that to say, I would not be surprised if the bill looks semi strict on immigration but basically lacks any real teeth.
functor
1d ago
Russia chose to go to war with America.
Glad we are admiting that Ukraine is just a proxy state for America. So the US can bomb, invade and occupy countries left and right and have proxy states right on Russia's border and there are no sanctions. However, other countries have no real legal protection and are left to the wims of American for whether their dollars are worth something or not.
There is a reason why this system isn't going to be stable.
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Tlt bad investment. You compared long term investments where the market was priced at 0% (historically high prices) to now higher rates. This is just bond math. Interest rates change. T-Bills did not lose any money. 30 year bonds are a bet on rates.
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US took Russias money. If I have $20 of Jeroboam’s money in my pocket. And you Jeroboam punched me in the face he shouldn’t be surprised when I don’t give him his money back. Seems rational. The funny thing before Jeroboam punched me in the face he knew he was going to punch me in the face. Yet he also knew I had his money. Why didn’t he get it back before punching me? Something something there are good reasons why Jeroboam had his money in my pocket before punching me and it’s very sticky.
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No accounting for a risks free asset versus a hunk of metal that only has value if someone else values it. Gold is a Ponzi scheme depending on a new sucker getting talked into owning gold. The Dollar is not a Ponzi scheme. People have to use it and if they don’t use it a military takes them and puts them in jail.
Edit: Too emphasize point 2. His argument for dollar weakness is the dollars greatest strength. Russia chose to go to war with America. They fully knew we would confiscate $300 billion. And could not liquidate before going to war. I complain that Apple is incredibly sticky and people just buy IPhones so they don’t look ghetto with green text. The dollar is so sticky you can go to war with America and can’t get rid of the dollar.
YouEssAyyy
3d ago
Personally if I was told a family was ethnicity cleansed I wouldn’t assume they moved to a nicer area of town, but to each his own.
ArmedTooHeavily
4d ago
I (very much a "gun guy" and an avid motorcycle rider) feel the same way about armed self defence as I feel about motorcycling:
People often get in motorcycle accidents and say "it wasn't my fault!" Maybe technically you're right, and by the laws of the road it wasn't "your fault". Maybe a car failed to yield to you, or ran into you at a stop light, or just merged into you. All clear violations of the law. Congradulations, you're still in the hospital or dead. There are steps that you could have taken to prevent this outcome, and you're paying the price for not taking them. You can be "right" or you can be upright.
There are hundreds of off ramps to almost every violent confrontation, and when it comes to guns, everybody is as vulnerable as a motorcyclist is on the road. Sure, they had no right to block the freeway. Sure, its real fucking sketchy to have one of them come up to your car with a rifle in his hands. Sure, you're probably legally and ethically justified in shooting, so long as you keep the frame of reference constrained to the immediate circumstances. But our ethical lives are not constrained to the immediate circumstances, and Daniel Perry made a series of dumbfuck decisions that led him to the moment his car was being approached by a guy with an AK. I don't think he should be convicted of murder, I would have acquitted, and I also think he is an irresponsible dipshit. His refusal to take the obvious pragmatic precautions like avoiding the protest altogether led to this nightmare, and the retarded culture warrior convictions that led him there were not to his or anyone's benefit.
A genuine question I have for the people who don't like immigrants here: In your ideal world what would you have the immigrants who come to the west do when they get here?
I've heard people complain about immigrants drawing welfare when they don't work; I've noted all the complaints about immigrants driving down pay and making the job market more competitive when they work normal people jobs and I've sure as hell seen all the attacks launched upon them when they come and take over the very top of society to rule the natives beneath them.
So my question very simply is: given that immigrants aren't going to stop coming any time soon, what should they be doing that will make them acceptable in your eyes?
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