domain:web.law.duke.edu
TowardsPanna
10m ago
Haven't looked deeply into this but my impression is that immigration to the US filters more for competence than immigration to the European countries does, with the latter getting a ton of low quality refugees etc
TowardsPanna
12m ago
Deportation won't work because 13/52? What do you mean by this?
A regime change operation in Ukraine
As of 2025, the only people trying to change the regime in Ukraine are Russia and some currently-not-in-charge Russophile elements in the Trump administration - even the Ukrainian opposition don't want a change of government under fire. That wouldn't change if it turned out the US was lying about their involvement with the Euromaidan. In any case, there have been two free and fair Presidential elections in Ukraine since the Euromaidan, and Zelenskyy came to power in 2019 by beating the man who Victoria Nuland allegedly installed.
I'm not claiming that the US had clean hands in the Euromaidan (I have no idea if they do or not) - I am claiming that there is nothing within the normal range of US foreign policy lies that could come out about Euromaidan that would affect the moral or political logic of what is happening in Ukraine in 2025. If the crux of our policy disagreement is "As a matter of resource allocation across various theatres in the New Cold War between the US, NATO and other allies on our side and China/Russia/Iran/North Korea on the other side, should the US be sending cash and materiel to Ukraine?" (and it sounds like it is) then discovering the truth about what Victoria Nuland said to Poroshenko doesn't change the calculation.
And now I am going to disagree with you about resource allocation, making arguments based on publicly-avaialable information that work just as well as a matter of strategic logic if Euromaidan had been a CIA plot
the war has gone a lot worse than reported.
Both the position of the front lines and the approximate losses of heavy equipment have been verified by OSINT. The best case for the Russians now is a Pyrrhic victory - which incidentally undermines the norm against aggressive war a lot less than a clean victory would have done (see Iraq). Russophiles claiming to have non-public information that the war is going badly for Ukraine have predicted dozens of the last one (Ukraine being driven out of Kursk oblast) Ukrainian defeats. Ukraine isn't winning, but the MSM aren't claiming otherwise.
equipment that is replacing the stuff sent to Ukraine costs multiples of the equipment sent to Ukraine
Yeah - we are sending borderline-obsolete kit to Ukraine (because it is good enough to kill Russians) and replacing it with new stuff that is hopefully good enough to kill Chinese. Essentially none of the stuff being sent to Ukraine would be used in a mostly-naval war against China. As of now, some air defence equipment promised to Ukraine is being held back in case Israel needs it.
basket case nation
I thought Ukraine was a basket case too, but empirically they are not. If they were, they would have lost by now - you can't prop up a basket case against a peer competitor without boots on the ground.
no arms production
Ukraine is now the third (after China and Turkey) largest producer of military drones - admittedly mostly by after-market modification of Chinese-made civilian drones.
DradisPing
49m ago
Part of the problem was that the left was too successful in casting things like HBD and culture being deep as unthinkably racist. They were extremely taboo on the mainstream right.
To put things in perspective, ousting the Soviets from Eastern Europe was largely successful. It was still highly taboo to talk about the problems in places like Zimbabwe and South Africa.
As a result it was impossible for anyone on the right to assemble an argument about how removing Saddam wouldn't result in a democratic revolution.
You'd sound too racist to be on TV.
Liberals from a more cosmopolitan background often have the attitude of "everybody knows X, it's just not polite to say it". But Republicans from small white towns frequently don't know it. They're going to go along with poor decisions if you don't let anyone tell them.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
1hr ago
The war was always unpopular with the anti-establishment left, who have always been more visible than they deserve given their actual level of public support. It was also unpopular with the anti-establishment right, although I don't know how many people noticed given that the anti-establishment right didn't have a megaphone at the time.
The pro-establishment left mostly supported the war, although my read at the time was I was not the only person with pro-establishment left sympathies who only did so because I trusted Blair to tell the truth about WMD etc. in a way that I didn't trust the Bush administration. Pro-establishment left elites like Senate Democrats or NYT access journalists had access to the same stovepiped intelligence that the Bush administration did, and almost entirely supported the war. That Obama was a notable exception is why he was a strong Presidential candidate in 2008.
The war was net-unpopular by the 2004 election (which is surprisingly close given the good economy) at which point it had become clear that the WMD were at best a small legacy stockpile that had never been a real threat to anything except an invading army and that the administration had got itself into a quagmire by failing to plan for the aftermath of victory. It didn't become shockingly unpopular until about 2006 when it became clear that the US had failed to find anyone capable of governing Iraq except Iranian proxies or Salafi jihadis.
functor
1hr ago
A regime change operation in Ukraine with the goal of pushing the US sphere of influence right into Russia's back yard even though they repeatedly warned against it. The US was doing everything it could to get a war and the war has gone a lot worse than reported.
The cost will be in the multiple trillions as interest rates have gone up sharply since the start of the war and the equipment that is replacing the stuff sent to Ukraine costs multiples of the equipment sent to Ukraine. Not to mention that NATO is inheriting a basket case nation that makes nation building in Afghanistan look like a cake walk. NATO now has to finance a military a quarter the size of the US military that is supposed to be capable of fighting a high intensity war in a country that has no arms production and now tax base to support it. Ukraine is going to be an endless foreign aid black hole
Iraq was definitely different. It was a completely unprovoked land grab on the other side of the planet. It wasn't really any different then the Belgians grabbing the Congo. The goal was to occupy and control Iraq while giving them zero legal status within the empire.
One of the main reasons why politicians are so freaked out about Ukraine is that they lied as much about Ukraine as they lied about every other war and they are afraid of the piles of lies being exposed. One day would could have a Ukrainian Ed Snowden or Bradley Manning.
You can make a strong argument for helping Ukraine defend itself based entirely on publicly-available information - that Russia invaded Ukraine is not in doubt, Putin has repeatedly said that his goals in invading Ukraine include annexing territory and forced Russification of the inhabitants (i.e. technical genocide), and Putin has in fact annexed Ukrainian territory and kidnapped the inhabitants' children for purposes of forced Russification. If you think stopping these things is worth $100 billion or so, then nothing the US might have lied about is relevant to the argument. All a Ukrainian Ed Snowden or Bradley Manning could do is demonstrate that NATO was opposing Russian interests in Ukraine in a way that would mean Putin's invasion was smart and evil rather than crazy and evil.
If a FDR-era Ed Snowden or Bradley Manning had come up with smoking-gun evidence that the US was acting against Japanese interests in a way which made Pearl Harbor smart and evil rather than crazy and evil (and the Axis-sympathetic US right thinks they have one, not entirely without justification) it wouldn't change the moral or practical case for defending America after Pearl Harbor. The situation in Ukraine is broadly analogous.
Iraq is different - both the "Iraq is helping Al-Quaeda" lie and the "Iraq is building scary WMD" lie/mistake/high-on-own-supply motivated deception arguments were based on non-public information where you had to trust the US government. And those were the best arguments for the Iraq war. If you try to defend the Iraq war based entirely on publicly-available information you end up with an argument that makes Bush look crazy and evil - something like "We need to invade a third world country every ten years to remind people that we can, and Iraq is convenient."
functor
2hr ago
What amazes me is the number of people who understand that the Iraq war, Vietnam war and Afghanistan war were spectacular fiascos and the whole establishment lied. But the next time the media sells a war they get all hyped up for it! This time there is a new supervillan who for absolutely no reason and with absolutely no historical context just behaves like a cartoon villian and we have to take him out now!
During Iraq there was at least some critical media and Baghdad bob was at least allowed on CNN. In Ukraine there are now dissenting opinions allowed. The people who spent 120 000 000 000 dollars building a 300 000 man army in Afghanistan and then told us the troops didn't exist yet the spending did, are supposed to be trusted blindly.
One of the main reasons why politicians are so freaked out about Ukraine is that they lied as much about Ukraine as they lied about every other war and they are afraid of the piles of lies being exposed. One day would could have a Ukrainian Ed Snowden or Bradley Manning.
Lykurg
We're all living in Amerika
3hr ago
Thank you. Most of this seems pretty reasonable, I have some disagreements from action 3 downwards. I think this is a superficial understanding of what an act is, and you would have trouble in other areas of ethics if you set aside background knowledge and intent this much. Consider for example a surgery that ends up lethal: what distinguishes accident from murder, and bad luck from negligence? What is the sin of gluttony, if knowing that youre satiated makes no difference?
You could similarly break the pulling out method down into steps, each of which "surely is allowed": 1) having sex is allowed under the right conditions 2) youre not obligated to keep the penis inside the whole time 3) if you just happen to ejaculate while its outside, thats an involuntary reaction. This assumes you can do it without jerking once outside, but thats possible and I doubt its supposed to make a difference.
From what I remember, the church allows nuns to use the pill in places where theyre at risk of being raped. So its allowed to be used, and even for its contraceptive purpose. Why? Presumably because they dont intend to have sex that way.
Would an intra-vaginal spermicide be allowed? What if its application moves further in time from the intercourse, in the limit to something like a copper IUD without side effects? You cant technology your way out of purposes, and the selling point of natural family planning is that it doesnt feel like technology.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
4hr ago
"Hilarious! You're fired."
Anything plausibly resembling "I left some fruit in a cabinet" is likely to be barely drinkable by desperate college students (I should know), nevermind better than what you get in a store.
It is true that my direct experience with the production of alcohol is with beer, and my experience in the consumption of homemade wine boils down to someone else having made it, but I just looked up some basic recipes and it is, in fact, basically "I left some fruit in a cabinet". Maybe the homemade wine I tasted had a more involved production process, but being familiar with the process of fermenting alcohol, I honestly doubt it.
As for quality, The idea that "better than in a store" is a hard bar to clear strikes me as absurd. Whether it's beer or wine, I swear they're putting something in it that leaves you with an unpleasant aftertaste, which homebrew just does not have.
If you want to insist that good beer is somehow easier to make than good wine (I'm far from an expert, but the proposition sounds extremely counter-intuitive to me), we can settle it relatively easy, I'll just make some, and tell you if I liked it.
Ah yes, the great genocide of 1920 -- how could I have forgotten?
Did in fact cause lots of deaths via crime. It didn't escalate to genocide, because they weren't actually stamping out the ownership and production of any and all alcohol. What am I missing?
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
5hr ago
I never have, but that's still really awesome! Congrats!
jkf
5hr ago
"Excuse me boss, I have a question: How can I cover for Tina if I'm also on maternity leave?"
jkf
5hr ago
That barely narrows down the range at all, so I don't think it's a good distinguisher from "roadside trash grass".
I dunno what to tell you man -- that's really all it takes. Start some seeds inside with your tomatoes in ~March, plant them, cull the males then throw a trash bag over the rest for a few hours a day in the fall and you will have pretty decent weed. The trash grass mostly comes from people skipping some of the above steps.
jkf
5hr ago
Homemade tends to be superior to the stuff you get in a store.
Homemade wine tends to be superior to the stuff you get in the store? That is... not true at all in my experience. And in the cases where it is, a tonne of work goes into it. Anything plausibly resembling "I left some fruit in a cabinet" is likely to be barely drinkable by desperate college students (I should know), nevermind better than what you get in a store.
You're not banning it unless you're planning to commit a genocide.
Ah yes, the great genocide of 1920 -- how could I have forgotten?
OliveTapenade
5hr ago
I'm not angling for a confession of wrongthink - I'm angling to translate either feeling or theory into practicable action. A political platform naturally requires some sort of plan for implementation. That plan doesn't have to be constrained by the Overton Window. A Yarvin-esque plan to build a shadow regime and step into power when the inevitable crisis of legitimacy comes is a valid answer; likewise a postliberal-esque plan to slowly build intellectual credibility while developing a new consensus in the shell of the old is a valid answer.
But in this case, if I'm reading you rightly, what you've got is basically "West Africans are really bad, and there's nothing that can be done about it".
Okay, so, what's the practical takeaway from that? It can just be "well, the United States is screwed", at which point the next question is, "given that, what do you plan to do, or recommend that others do?" Prepare to leave the US, so that if/when continuing to live there is untenable, you can get out? Build some sort of resilient, presumably West-African-free, community in some part of the US and focus on local welfare? Something else entirely?
It's not unreasonable or searching for gotchas to probe someone as to the practical implications of their politics. I'm not arguing with you in this thread! I haven't contradicted you or challenged any of your points! I'm asking you to elaborate on their practical implications because I'm interested in where they lead you.
Thanks for the detailed advice. At the moment I have six different possible plans featuring separate parts of China, all of which are still open to very heavy revision:
-
Beijing - Datong - Pingyao - Linfen - Xi'an;
-
Xi'an - Tianshui - Zhangye - Jiayuguan - Dunhuang (so basically travelling the length of the Hexi Corridor);
-
Suzhou - Tongli - Hangzhou - Hongcun - Wuyuan (as a jumping off base for Sanqingshan);
-
Chongqing - Chengdu - Leshan - Langzhong - Guangyuan - Xi'an;
-
Xiamen - Quanzhou - Tulou - Chaozhou - Kaiping - Macau; and
-
Kunming - Dali - Shaxi - Lijiang - Shangri-La.
I'm interested primarily in history + some natural sights (preferably without too many tourists!). Feel free to comment on some of these destinations if you've visited. But I realise that's a lot of items, so I'll only ask questions about the destinations you've specifically mentioned.
Chongqing is definitely a place I'm highly interested in, not just because of the outright strangeness of the city itself but also the Dazu rock carvings outside of it. There are five main locations (Baodingshan, Beishan, Nanshan, Shimenshan and Shizhuanshan), and I've been wondering if the site is interesting enough to justify spending a night in Dazu just so I can explore all the grottoes at a leisurely pace, or if a day trip from Chongqing to see the main two sites of Baodingshan and Beishan would be a better use of my time. From Chongqing it is about 1.5 hours each way, which is making me wonder just how rushed a day trip would be just using public transport.
With regards to Chongqing itself, what are the main places you would recommend? I know of the famous Hongyadong and Kuixing Building, as well as Shibati, Xiahaoli and the Shancheng footpath. There's some historical/cultural sites such as the Huguang Guild Hall, Luohan Temple and Laojun Cave, which I will certainly visit if I go to Chongqing (Erfo Temple in Hechuan seems to be an easy day trip out too). I also hear about lots of old bomb shelters built during the city's short stint as a wartime capital, which have been converted into public spaces and libraries and restaurants and galleries. Is there anything else I've missed?
Kaifeng is an unexpected recommendation because I haven't heard anybody else speaking about it as a destination in spite of its historical importance (perhaps on the Chinese internet they are). What would you say are the best things to visit in that city? I broadly know about Daxiangguo Temple, Yanqing Taoist Temple, Shanshangan Assembly Hall, Kaibao Si Pagoda, Po Pagoda, Dongda Mosque and so on but they don't seem like enough to fill out an entire week. Would be interested to hear about your itinerary when you were there.
Guizhou's mountain villages are interesting and I've been looking at them for a while but haven't been able to fully narrow down what I want to see. Happy to hear your personal recommendations for the province. Something I keep hearing about a number of these villages (I hear it a lot about the Xijiang Miao Village) is that they're overly Disneylandified and set up for tourists? If possible I'd like to avoid that. Langde Miao Village and Nanhua Miao Village are some villages I'm interested in, I'm wondering if staying in one of those villages for a night is worth it.
Finally, how far north would you say I could go in December before the cold starts to get intolerable? Shanxi province has a lot of ancient Tang and Liao architecture and that makes it very attractive to me, but it's also very far north in China. Just trying to see how you think I should limit my scope.
Sorry if this is too much. Feel free to respond to as much or as little as you want.
Immediately piqued my interest with the combination of the title and the obvious pseudonym of the author.
a PDF of this book is immediately available on a first page DuckDuckGo search. It is the homepage of Kevin MacDonald who wrote the forward of the book so thats ... interesting ... if Corey / MacDonald are trying to make money.
Anyway - how seriously researched and planned out is it? Or is this a "should've been a blog post" style reactionary writing a la Jim's Blog?
LOL. This is very online "it's da joos!" conspiracy theory midwittery.
Fascinating. Are they agitating to reset jus saguinis?
I can see that being a valid approach for a Westphalian nation-state, every couple hundred years or so as its culture slowly shifts.
“Everyone who is here right now, and has some percentage of original stock blood, gets to be a citizen. Everyone outside that circle, you are more not like us than you are like us so we don’t want you anymore.”
Presumably you would get some churn in the population genetics without experiencing a total overturning of the original culture.
Could work out.
JulianRota
6hr ago
I've considered writing something similar in the more general department of how fiction affects peoples' worldviews. I see it a lot in terms of discussions on criminal justice in particular.
My impression from the sources I've read that seem to accurately reflect the "average" case rather than cases or regions cherry-picked for some particular reason is that around 90% of all people charged with crimes in the United States are guilty as sin and busted dead to rights. Meanwhile, huge numbers of people seem to believe things like that most people are innocent or crazy serial killers are everywhere or something like that, because all their knowledge comes from fictional media optimized for drama, and documentaries that cherry-pick outrageous cases and exaggerate how outrageous they are.
Dissident right? SS is literally a Nazi who thinks the Holocaust was a good thing (insofar he admits it even happened).
More options
Context Copy link