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sliders1234
18m ago
No.
The most important parts of our army have dropped out of the army. Masculine males often southern no longer feel they fit in with the military.
Racial resentment is higher now.
A significant portion of the right (and disproportionately our best fighting men) now have a great deal of fondness for Putin or Xi. A masculine Chinese or Russian ruler doesn’t sound that bad to them versus being an adrogenous they/them with no real purpose in society.
On Balkanization - moreso in Europe but you did not have to worry about balkanization when a Swede was a Swede and you didn’t invite in sub Saharan blacks or Syrian immigrants. In the U.S. I think we have fewer big cultural issues with our immigrants coming from the South but they aren’t going to be our sophisticated fighting class.
Blacks in America have never posed a political problem. They are lower class. They have never been a key part of our fighting class. If they rose up against white well violent repression would not be hard.
On the left wokeism and oppressor-oppressed has literally caused a not that small group of Americans to identify with Hamas and take the side of our enemies.
In short if wokeism came from the intelligence community it’s the worst idea they have ever had.
The lefts concern that Putin in 2016 infiltrated our social media to radicalize America against itself plus China weapononizing wokeism on Tic-Tock is far more logical. America is far more Balkanized today than it was in 2008.
Is it common for Eurovision to consistently have so many LGBT performers?
When I was a kid, my memory is that the western European entrants tended to be knowingly, overwhelmingly camp (over-the-top dance-pop songs, garish stage production etc.), while the eastern European entrants tended to be more serious and subdued (mid-tempo ballads accentuated with traditional instrumentation). The audience for Eurovision has always been as gay as they come, but I think it's only within the last decade that many European countries have started consciously leaning into this by submitting performers with the intent of appealing to gay audiences i.e. performers who are themselves LGBT.
What exactly is it with Ireland and Israel?
As a country which got its independence in the last century, the Irish carry around a residual postcolonial sentiment and (rightly or wrongly) see the struggle for Palestinian statehood as analogous to the battle for Irish independence. It may be "performative" in some sense, but the Irish support for the Palestinian cause predates the modern progressive/woke movement by decades e.g. when I was in primary school, every Easter we'd raise funds for the charity Trócaire, who even at the time were outspoken in their support for Palestine. Even many social conservatives are sympathetic to the cause: my mum often tells the story of her father (a devout Catholic who was opposed to the legalisation of divorce, never mind abortion) visiting Israel in the early 2000s and describing how appalled he was by the security checks Palestinians were made to go through on entrance to the state. The Provisional IRA (active in both north and south from the 60s to the late 90s) were in direct contact with the PLO, and even received training from them. I was in Belfast in January, and when driving through heavily Catholic districts of the city (e.g. the Falls road), I saw Palestinian flags hanging from every pub, which were conspicuous by their absence in the Protestant districts. A friend of mine joked that this makes Israel-Palestine one of the most effective shibboleths for gauging someone's religious background in Northern Ireland. Even prior to October 7th, it wasn't remotely uncommon to see Palestinian flags adorning the balconies of working-class council flats in Dublin (October 7th has "gentrified" the cause such that the middle-class houses who were displaying Ukrainian flags for the last two years have now added Palestinian flags, or even replaced them). I doubt it will surprise you to learn that I don't think the alleged parallels between Palestine-Israel and Ireland-Britain really hold water (e.g. to my mind, Hamas leaders have made it perfectly clear that their ultimate goal is the extermination of every Jew from the face of the earth; while I have nothing nice to say about the IRA, they did not have the stated goal of massacring every Briton), but that's neither here nor there.
I've never gotten the feeling that Ireland is an antisemetic country (the most famous novel to come out of the country has a Jewish protagonist; there's been at least one prominent Jewish elected official in my lifetime; there was a Jewish guy in my class in secondary school who was far more popular than I was). If there had been scenes similar to London or Sydney over the last six months (e.g. rabbis getting harassed on the street, mass crowds chanting "gas the Jews"), I imagine I would have heard about it. There aren't many Muslims in Ireland, but thirty times as many Muslims as Jews according to the 2016 census, and the ratio is probably even more skewed now. Even the numerous pro-Palestine protests that I've seen seem to be principally attended by native white Irish people rather than first-generation Muslim immigrants.
Thanks for the explanation. It doesn't sound a whole lot more rational than straight-up Jew-hatred, but I appreciate your thoroughness in writing out the history of this mode of thought.
RegularlyExpressed
16m ago
That's interesting because again I would say those are points in soccer's favour. Particularly when it comes to it being less physical, surely it's more entertaining to watch people compete based on skill rather than brute size/strength? I can't imagine there'd be much of a market for watching someone who weighs 150kg beat up an opponent half his size in boxing or MMA. Whereas in soccer someone like Messi can run rings around players much larger than him thanks to his co-ordination and ball control.
2D3D
55m ago
If you are with your girlfriend, the indian dance clubs and thai discos actually have pretty bar stool + table setups for you to drink without indulging in the proclivities. The door bitches look quite intimidating but on slow weekday nights (mon tues thurs) they will rather have anyone coming in to down a jug or two instead of having zero business at all. Be as shameless as the Asians in looking without seeing in thai discos or indian dance clubs, you are under no obligation to tip or hang flower. The best place for that as tourists is Circular Road, near Boat Quay which is the drinking area for the professionals in the Central Business District. Filipino bar girls and indian dance clubs there in between ridiculously cheap (and good) indian muslim food joints. If you get supper around 930 to 1030pm at the restaurant called Shah Alam you can usually see a Vellfire pop up and drop off a clown car full of girls in saris. For thai discos that will require a local, if only for the language barrier and the difficulty of navigating the Middle Road to Arab Street nightlife areas.
If you're with your girlfriend and have good heat tolerance, do stuff like Henderson Waves or Botanic Gardens. Can't really go wrong with green tropical forest shit. If you have more time then consider trips to JB, it is basically cheaper Singapore. Temples and culture may require trips to Indonesia or Thailand or Vietnam. At least the trips to the airport in Singapore are fun unto themselved, and many Singaporeans actually treat thr airport as a shopping center with an attached airplane management facility.
zeke5123a
28m ago
It is said mostly in jest. But I think soccer is an inferior sport to say football or Hockey. It is less physical, less specialization, and less tools. And I think the reason people in the states love it isn’t intrinsic to the sport but because it is popular. I hate that.
Also there is something sad to the homogenization of all culture. Sports are part of culture
RegularlyExpressed
35m ago
That's fair. IMO the low-scoring nature of soccer/football is what makes the game tense and exciting - that feeling of not even wanting to go to the bathroom because you risk missing a dramatic game-changing moment isn't something I can imagine experiencing watching something as high-scoring as basketball. Differing tastes.
hydroacetylene
59m ago
Lots of Americans don't like being asked to care about soccer because they consider a sport which doesn't score that frequently boring.
Eurovision is basically always two steps gayer than the rest of the society, so it's gayer than in the 90s, but it was already gay in the 90s by the 90s society standards. The gayness has never really been a huge hindrance to it being a huge popular spectacle, even many European conservatives are willing to tolerate gay and gender nonconforming stuff as long as the context is artistic expression.
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