domain:youtube.com
hydroacetylene
15hr ago
I have friends who were assaulted by Song at a protest in ft worth in 2023.
The use of AR-15’s doesn’t tell us anything; it’s the most common rifle in America and you can buy them over the counter at probably a dozen locations within two miles of the facility, and hundreds of not over a thousand in DFW. For an operation like that you want something semi-consistent and obtainable, even if you’d rather get some bespoke battle rifle. Likewise, black is just the antifa uniform, and any street trash is going to pick up on radios and getaway cars. All the ‘markers of competency’ mean is someone planned this, not that the planner was competent.
gattsuru
19hr ago
Supposedly at least some of the attackers were John Brown Gun Club nuts. Which isn't evidence against the feds being involved, but JBGCs are also pretty famously prone to collecting mall ninjas with expensive or goofy gear.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
22hr ago
You can absolutely enter into agreements that restrict the 1st amendment right to free speech, NDAs, trade secrets, non disparagement clauses, even just normal character clauses in a contract restrict your right to free speech.
The first amendment protects from the government, it does not protect from private contract law.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
23hr ago
When Aristotle talks about "natural slaves" he's not really talking about some American nightmare-vision of an antebellum plantation*. The ancient Greek system of slavery he was familiar with was closer to "employee who can't quit" than it was to "living under absolute constant terror." In some sense "slave" is a mistranslation, because the context is so different.
If you say "should it be legal to enslave people" everyone says no; but if you asked the same people "Should it be legal for certain people to be employed in jobs they can't quit" many would say yes.
There's no question that a great number of people need a structured job created for them, where they are directed. Traditionally, bosses took a large hand in the personal lives of their workers; today that is frowned upon.
*It should be noted that actual plantation life wasn't like that either. There were black slaves better off than some poor white people.
TequilaMockingbird
Brown-skinned Fascist MAGA boot-licker
13hr ago
AlexanderTurok, You claim that you are "anti third-worldism", but if that is true, why have you consistently aligning yourself with those who are trying to make the US more like a third-world country against those who want to make it great?
It wasn't MAGA that turned San Francisco into a fecese-strewn open-air drug market. It wasn't MAGA that worked behind the scenes to put a dementia patient in the Whitehouse. And it is not MAGA that has been marching in solidarity with HAMAS, shooting at federal officers, or trying to put a Communist in Gracie Mansion. It is your "Elite Human Capital" doing all of that.
The whole "Immigrants are just doing the jobs Americans wont do" is a blatant lie. There is no industry in these United States where the majority of workers and illegal/undocumented. Not even seasonal agriculture during the height of the Biden surge. The truth is "American don't want to do those jobs for those wages" and that is what this is (and has always been) about, wages.The Plantation owners don't want to pay the help, and once again the Democrats (who have always been the Party of the Plantation Owners) are once again threating civil war if they are not allowed to continue importing and exploiting thier non-citizen underclass.
Did I strawman the Right?
Yup.
Let's ask Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the United States secretary of labor:
Unless Lore Chavez-DeRemer has put on an unprecedented amount of weight in the last 48 hours, no one should confuse her for the mass of tens of millions of people that could be considered 'the Right.' The volume of space alone would be magnitudes off.
As such, attempting to use her as a proxy of tens of millions of people is a strawman, absent compelling evidence the views of those tens of millions are accurately represented by her.
chooky
18hr ago
If 50% tariffs have been painless
Most global trade is via ocean freight, which is fairly slow. Domestic supply chains and inventory turnaround time delay the impact further. I would consider most data on final prices to very much still be pre-tariff, especially since headline series like the CPI/PCE are still only through May. The big data tests for the tariffs implemented in April will probably be for June and July data over the coming weeks, but even then the metals tariff increases to 50% didn't take effect until June.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
18hr ago
I want to believe, but also there are no aliens in the classical “beings from outer space” sense.
I rate this news 5 Nothings out of 5 Ever Happens.
You are correct that Comic Sans is the appropriate font for this.
Goodguy
19hr ago
"No plan survives contact with the enemy." Especially when the soldiers are untrained and inexperienced and likely to panic when gunfire starts coming back from the other side.
The idea of luring ICE agents out using fireworks and then shooting them once they are out in the open seems like good tactics to me. But it seems that the attackers would have probably done better had they delayed the plan and spent some more time on the target range first.
hanikrummihundursvin
20hr ago
I think the general sentiment regarding 5.56 is that it's great up until the point you have to take on armored opponents or longer range engagements. It's not without cause that the Army and Marines have been moving towards larger calibers recently. That being said, a high velocity 5.56 round hitting you anywhere except your chest plate will probably render you combat ineffective. Couple that with low recoil and it's hard to imagine a more preferable option for lightly trained persons.
Browser
8hr ago
Can stabilize somebody at a point that's essentially at death's door but ultimately not be able to achieve sufficient resuscitation
ulyssessword
9hr ago
Bystanders desperately tried to assist the injured man as emergency services raced to the scene.
Mr Baitson was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery.
However, he died four days later.
Stranger things have happened, but dying four days after a leg wound is certainly up there IMO. I'd think you would either die in a few minutes or get enough help to recover, but maybe there's a middle ground.
eee
10hr ago
Why do you think it makes sense to say that the views of some random politician are emblematic of the "online racialist Right"? During the Biden administration, could I quote some random official and say that their position is the position of online radical leftists?
People accuse you of unfairly representing other groups opinions... because you don't understand their positions and represent them unfairly. And when people point out that you have done this you throw a big hissyfit. Then, you go right back to doing the same thing.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11hr ago
One might think that but the guys that go in for special forces are amongst the most violent and aggressive. Fort Bragg has crazy high death rate because of the drug use and violence.
While I am confident US special forces are trained differently to Spetsnaz one can see a little of the 'operator mindset' here: https://x.com/XiaoVilin99/status/1937922190005178389
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
14hr ago
Back to my main point: people covered in tattoos and/or piercings are the human equivalent of aposematism, change my mind.
As a middle-aged curmudgeon with zero tattoos or piercings, I agree completely.
I had wondered how these two knew each other:
[the defendant] had previously sent [the victim] a text where he threatened to chop off his fingers because of a drug debt which he at one point claimed amount to E2500.
[the victim] had texted him back insisting that he only owed him a couple of hundred euro
A horrible tragedy, yet there may be a lesson present about engaging in drug transactions with someone covered in face/neck/head tattoos.
07mk
14hr ago
Also apropos of nothing, this reminded me of how so many pro-trans-rights-activist comics I've seen on social media just feature a punchline of someone of the wrong opinions being murdered, and how their slogans like "punch a transphobe" or "throw bricks at transphobes" tend to be along those lines. My pet theory is that this is due to TRAs being dominated by people with far more testosterone than a typical woman but also who have a tendency to indulge in their emotional urges as is the common stereotype of a woman in contrast to a man.
Corvos
15hr ago
I think it’s fair to say that nobody proposes that Americans are jumping at the chance to do the worst possible jobs.
You have people who accept that jobs like fruit-picking and taking care of incontinent elderly people need to be automated or done by sufficiently-incentivised Americans because the alternative is endless mass-immigration as each new set of second-generation immigrants refuses to do the scut work their parents came to do.
You also have people who believe that some of the jobs being done by immigrants are perfectly decent, okay-paying jobs that Americans are being priced out of or excluded from. Semi-skilled factory labour. Coding.
I appreciate your going and looking for an actual quote but DeRemer’s phrasing is very vague. I suspect she’s talking about the latter category, and your analysis of the rest of the interview seems to confirm that. I certainly think that
sees a mostly imaginary mass of helpless unemployed drug addicts and demands tariffs so that they can rise to the lofty heights of sewing bras, picking fruit, hauling equipment, and digging ditches in the rain
is not upheld by the quote, though she may think it in private. Regardless, who do you think is actually going to do these jobs? Do you think that America can continue to rely on illegal labour to do these jobs for the next 50 years without serious consequences? 100?
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
15hr ago
There are reasons to “uplift the in-group” and you need to articulate why this is an innoble goal in and of itself. They are citizens; they have more in common with you if you are a wealthy white person; for evolutionary reasons, it is natural to have an interest in uplifting those that are similar to yourself; for reasons of national security, you do not want so many citizens who believe that the American project is not worth investing in; they may have a higher IQ than Hondurans; they may have different levels of compassion or a different taste in aesthetics which may be informed by genetics.
Is there any wonder high-income whites are moving away from the Republican Party
College-educated White males lean toward Trump. It’s just women who shifted a lot toward Harris.
Working-class whites, too, don't want their sons working casual labor
This may have something to do with the millions of migrants brought in to undercut wages, the exact thing we’re talking about. No, you can’t ever compete with them, because —
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Remittance payments mean that they can afford a higher quality life while temporarily living a lower quality life in America
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They are raised with values that are de-socialized by our ridiculous mandatory education culture, and this isn’t the kind of thing you can arbitrarily re-socialize at will
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They often live in illegal accommodations, requiring less funds, and these require a network that natives aren’t a part of
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They live within a culture where the women expect to marry laborers
I’m also not sure if you’re agreeing with him that it would increase wages, and just disagree that this is important, or if you think it won’t increase wages.
aqouta
16hr ago
China tightened regulations on real estate developers in 2020. Xi Jinping stated 'houses are for living, not speculation.' Ghost cities, huge numbers of Chinese citizens owning multiple houses as investment vehicles, I assume you're all familiar with the stories after five years of news stories and discussion. Economists and western commentators largely agreed that the policies were A Really Bad Idea due to the ensuing chaos and meltdown in property prices.
To which I have to say ...what? They said they wanted to reduce housing costs! What did you think that would look like? How else are you going to do it? And what do you think it would look like to 'make housing more affordable' in the USA? If the YIMBYs and neoliberals abundance socialists get their way, home prices are going to tank here too. This is a good thing! Maybe there's some Chestertonian benefit to the upwards spiral of housing costs, but this here's a fence I'm ready to take a torch to.
I think you're misunderstanding the housing issue in China. Their problem is that all that housing was financed with debt taken on by the local governing bodies who are up to their eyeballs in it and also get most of their revenue from building the housing. The Chinese stock market doesn't make returns and Chinese citizens are limited to where they can put their savings. Housing being cheaper is fine, good even but that sector was propping up the local governments. Chinese people have something like 70% of their savings in housing and housing makes up something like 30% of chinese GDP. Chinese local governments are facing debt crises as a result.
WhiningCoil
19hr ago
If you're incompetent and unteachable enough that you need to be governed with direct intervention, and restricted from handling your own affairs, you're also not really equipped to tell if your overseer is making good decisions on your behalf, and even if they aren't actively exploiting you, they can of course be making decisions that are suboptimal for your personal wellbeing, simply because they are not as motivated to do the best possible job.
IMHO, this is a perfect is the enemy of good situation. Is someone managing your decisions better than you, such that you are having even marginally better life outcomes than you were before them telling you what to do? Well, then how much of that added value they skim off the top comes down to competition between overseers.
Shit, I think we just reinvented the labor market.
faceh
19hr ago
On the flip side there's the principal-agent problem.
If you're incompetent and unteachable enough that you need to be governed with direct intervention, and restricted from handling your own affairs, you're also not really equipped to tell if your overseer is making good decisions on your behalf, and even if they aren't actively exploiting you, they can of course be making decisions that are suboptimal for your personal wellbeing, simply because they are not as motivated to do the best possible job.
Maybe there needs to be an overseer-advocate role whose sole job is to audit the other overseers and ensure they're at least complying with best practices.
But this adds extra complexity and expense to this system.
So one really hopes that in the aggregate the added costs of supervising the supervisors and auditing the expenses and otherwise ensuring that the wards are being treated adequately well are actually producing more value than just leaving those folks to their own devices to be exploited.
I can see why institutionalization was a popular solution for this in decades past. If you can put the wards all in one place and lock them in, it takes relatively few supervisors to manage them all, and in theory if you can check in on the conditions regularly and make sure there's no wanton abuses.
In practice, the people most drawn to these jobs would, in many cases, be the most likely to want to commit some kind of abuse.
sarker
It isn't happening, and if it is, it's a bad thing
21hr ago
You're the only Indian I've met who claims that people would get beaten in the street for various transgressions and I really find it hard to believe. Every Indian woman I've met seems to have a story about getting groped in public and the offender never gets beaten by the upstanding citizens that you claim inhabit the subcontinent.
Here is a vicesplainer on the career trajectory of one Delhi pickpocket. He joins a gang that has so much opportunity for larceny that they're pickpocketing around the clock in shifts. He certainly doesn't fear retaliation from honorable bystanders, the only thing he seems to fear is the gang after he tells them he's out.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
22hr ago
The Greeks (and Americans) frequently allowed skilled and disciplined slaves to save up enough money to buy their freedom.
Inasmuch as courage or valor was expected, it was of the "discipline and goal orientation over extended period of time" type, rather than the "violent revolt" type.
The thing in this clip, basically:
naraburns
nihil supernum
22hr ago
When Aristotle talks about "natural slaves" he's not really talking about some American nightmare-vision of an antebellum plantation.
Yes, this is right--it's always interesting teaching the Politics because I have to explain to my students all of the ways in which "slave" can be interpreted. Fortunately, Aristotle himself also lays out how differently slavery was practiced in different parts of Greece--very like your footnote suggests of antebellum American slavery. In Book 2 of the Politics, Aristotle writes:
Or, upon what principle would they submit, unless indeed the governing class adopt the ingenious policy of the Cretans, who give their slaves the same institutions as their own, but forbid them gymnastic exercises and the possession of arms.
Apparently, at least from Aristotle's perspective, slaves in Crete were just regular people who couldn't hit the gym or own guns pointy metal objects. This was apparently more generous than slavery as practiced in Athens, which was in turn apparently more liberal than the way it was practiced in Sparta. To the best of my understanding, chattel slavery was not the norm in ancient Greece, but neither was it unheard of.
These days it is essentially impossible to have a nuanced policy debate on slavery. We have insisted on eradication of the practice, while in great measure merely obfuscating it. If that was a necessary step to the elimination of chattel slavery, well, then I suppose I can't complain too much about it. But I find it at least of interest that so many technically free, politically enfranchised humans in the West would probably be better off with greater guidance--even though I do not regard myself as in want or need of similar intervention.
(But that may simply be a further question of degree. If we really did build a genuine superintelligence, unfettered by "alignment" to some other human's political agenda, would I not be wise to submit myself to it? I feel grateful to doubt that I will ever face such a choice.)
I would never get a tattoo and have judgements about tattoos but this doesn't really indicate that tattoos are a red flag. I mean, they are. But this goes well beyond that. There's a big difference between a tattoo of a bird on your arm, and what this person has which is the equivalent of having "I am an insane and dangerous person" tattooed across your forehead.
Does anyone who isn't a full on progressive zealot disagree with you that a person tatted up that that guy is probably bad news? I really doubt it. And the progressive zealots actually agree with you too, they know that person is bad news, they just see protecting and creating people who are bad news as a core goal.
They're not stupid. They know that they are flirting with genuine danger. That's the appeal.
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