Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Well, globalism is happening whether you want it to or not, and Pelosi is a hero.

Okay now that Pelosi bit was fucking hilarious. A limp wrist corporate whore is definitely the type of person to consider a hero. Yessum.

[Mobius_118]

Well she got trump to ask for consent first. Something he's never done before. And you worship a corporate slut anyway, so pipe down, libertarian. Go put some kneepads on and grab the chapstick.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Well she got trump to ask for consent first. Something he's never done before. And you worship a corporate slut anyway, so pipe down, libertarian. Go put some kneepads on and grab the chapstick.

Nah. I don't actually worship anyone. You definitely have religious fervor though. It's pretty impressive. I do still think it's funny that you use both capitalist and libertarian as insults though.

Really shows your far lefty credentials.

[Mobius_118]

Ok.

You have expressed incandescent levels of retardation when it comes to the whole "trump is a traitor" thing. It gets real bad every time one of his staff does something stupid like support foreign agents.

But no, I'm the one with religious fervor. Right. Keep talking, libertarian. Your brain damage comes through more and more every time you post.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Uh huh. You keep the faith alive Mobius. I'll laugh all the way to 2024.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XSFujGafG0

oh Media.

[Sinekein]

Nah. I don't actually worship anyone. You definitely have religious fervor though. It's pretty impressive. I do still think it's funny that you use both capitalist and libertarian as insults though.

Really shows your far lefty credentials.

The funny thing is that you insulted Pelosi using a wording that wouldn't be out of place in a communist manifesto ("limp wrist corporate whore"). And which also can adequately be used to describe Trump.

What I find incredible is that many people seem to believe that Trump and wealthy CEOs like Bezos or Zuckerberg are working against each other. I've no doubt they despise each other, but it's basically "only personal". When it comes down to business, they don't really tend to really try to screw each other up. Trump's tax exemptions helps the super wealthy entrepreneurs. Zuckerberg does not seem hellbent on making Facebook an alt-left refuge, on the contrary.

They can talk shit to each other in public, but in private they aren't very tough, probably because they have similar economic goals.

It's like being a reverse gentleman.

Anyway, a new poll found on an alt-left site showing that most Americans favor increasing taxes on the wealthy AND (gasp) improve public spending. Seriously, how can you trust dirty commies like [url=limp wrist corporate whore]Fox News[/url] with their obvious agenda?

[Vol]

Roger Stone was arrested in a raid this morning. CNN was tipped off and filmed it, because the FBI is a part of the Democrat party too apparently. All process crimes, of course, lying and witness tampering (Don't snitch). Nothing about Russia, but that's not really the point of a fishing expedition.

He's out on bail.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

"I found a poll on an alt-left site that shows Americans want higher taxes on the rich"

Yep. I'm absolutely certain you did. Genuinely. I'm also absolutely certain that you could go to a right leaning site and find a poll that says the exact opposite.

Polls are useless unless you can get enough of them together to form an aggregate.

I could show you a presidential approval poll that puts Trump at somewhere in the mid 30's. And then immediately find another one that puts him at 49-50.

Neither of those are likely to be accurate. So you start adding more and more polls with more and more polling methods. And eventually you get something that just might be accurate. Which generally and fairly consistently places him somewhere in the upper 30's to the lower 40's.

[Raga]

I started reading:



which is probably a better fit for the politics thread than the book thread.

A bit in the introduction is him going over the history of nationalism as a coherent political philosophy and not just as a synonym for either patriotism or chauvinism.

"As late as the Second World War, many still believed that the principle of national freedom was the key to a just, diverse, and relatively peaceful world. But Hitler changed all that, and today we live in the aftermath, in which a simplistic narrative, ceaselessly repeated, asserts that "nationalism caused two world wars and the Holocaust." And who, in fact, would want to be a nationalist if nationalism means supporting racism and bloodshed on an unimaginable scale?"

It puts me in mind of something I've seen Jordan Peterson do (who I've said before I find mostly philosophically middling but occasionally he does say something thought-provoking or profound) when he is debating or being interviewed by various leftists. He will say that we've established a pretty clear check point for when the right goes too far and strays off into the weeds and is entering the territory of "Here There Be Dragons" and becomes inherently dangerous in a way that disqualifies them from benefit of the doubt and other staples of the free speech marketplace and that is when they enter the territory of bonafide racist chauvinism (my race is better/more deserving/superior to other races). So basically when they enter Mein Kampf territory, cut them off. He will then challenge the leftist to propose a similar check point for people on the left. When is the precise "Here There Be Dragons" moment, and they invariably won't provide one. Sometimes they just seem stumped because they've never been challenged to think about it, but more often they prevaricate in a way that implies there is no such point on the left.

You see a similar dynamic in which the right is tied squarely to Nazism (or fascism more generally but usually it's specifically Nazism) as the logical end-point of it running amok, but similar efforts to tie the left to Stalinism (or communism more generally) as the end-point of the left run amok are unceasingly combated by various species of the "No True Scotsman" argument (the Soviet Union wasn't really communist, communism isn't really socialism, et al).

There is widespread public agreement in much of the world and especially the West that Nazism is evil and we should have nothing to do with it and we've actually succeeded in tying at least one aspect of Nazi ideology to "Thou shalt not" status (racial chauvinism) which everybody who isn't a complete wacko pays at least lip service to. Because people see that success, there is an incentive to push and expand the list of items that have "thou shalt not" status by trying to copy that success. So basically, anything I don't like which I can demonstrate Nazis did or had as part of their ideology, if I succeed in tying that idea as inseparable from Nazism and also leading to the same conclusions as Nazism, it will permanently render it as "subject non grata" for public debate.

This is done with all sorts of things including nationalism as the author of this book has pointed out. It's also done with the idea that people have some hard to define right to have outsize influence on the region in which they are born and in which their ancestors live which outranks the right of newcomers to demand access to it (except with various indigenous peoples where this idea is used in their defense all the time). There's even been attempts to tie generalized right-wing populism to Nazism. There's probably others I'm not thinking of or that I'm forgetting.

This is extremely salient to me. There are whole schools of thought, whole debates on public policy that we are just now allowed to have or which the left tries to prevent us from having on some nebulous "the Nazis said something sort of like that once" grounds.

This is dangerous, undemocratic, and wrongheaded.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

I started reading:

So I mostly post in this thread for fun. Shitposts, arguing with Mobius. Stuff like that entertains me on the internet. And people largely don't take me particularly seriously because of it. I'm generally fine with that.

But I wanted to break character for a moment to say that while I find myself in frequent disagreement with a lot of you I do actually appreciate a lot of what you post.

I might actually pick this book up next time I have book budget money, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[Mobius_118]

Roger Stone was arrested in a raid this morning. CNN was tipped off and filmed it, because the FBI is a part of the Democrat party too apparently. All process crimes, of course, lying and witness tampering (Don't snitch). Nothing about Russia, but that's not really the point of a fishing expedition.

He's out on bail.

Roger Stone was the one who told the trump campaign about Wikileaks and the Clinton emails. The charges wouldn't have been filed if they weren't credible, and Mueller has a tendency to not file things frivolously.

If Roger Stone, Nixon-era stooge, is indicted, it's serious. Just because he was able to post bail doesn't mean he's free. He has a court date to come back to, and failing to appear will result in further charges.

[Raga]

Followup to my above post. My personal "Here There Be Dragons" moment for the left is when they start advocating for the eradication of private property.

[Mobius_118]

Followup to my above post. My personal "Here There Be Dragons" moment for the left is when they start advocating for the eradication of private property.

Funny, it's the conservatives who have a tendency to seize properties for personal or profitable means. Or in the case of Bundy and his militia to seize Federal buildings because of some limp-dick libertarian idea.

In other news that should be a shock to exactly no one who's got a brain between the ears, Kushner has a top secret clearance despite his storied history of being a foreign asset.

Nepotism at it's finest.

Edit:

Government temporarily reopened, government workers will be paid, but not contractors, and not a single cent for the wall.

Trump really is a loser. 35 days of fucking over America for wall funding he won't get, Roger Stone is yet another witch caught in the witch hunt, and a steadily depleting support base.

[Raga]

Followup to my above post. My personal "Here There Be Dragons" moment for the left is when they start advocating for the eradication of private property.

There's also moments where people on the far-left have gone full racist both historically and in the modern day, but it's pretty much never met with the same level of horror as when it's exhibited on the right.

I nowhere said that these are mutually exclusive because the left/right spectrum is itself somewhat overly simple and inane. (For instance, Nazism is more accurately an extremism of the center because it's a radicalism of the petite bourgeoisie and not so much the working class or the rich, but it's so well recognized as a specifically far-right idea in popular debate that it's basically pointless to even try to bring this up).

Inasmuch as you accept that it's possible for people to carry political ideas far out into the weeds in dangerous ways that shouldn't be tolerated and we should establish what these are, it seems pretty axiomatic that any list consisting of nothing but "racial chauvinism because Nazis" is a pretty useless and bankrupt list.

[Mobius_118]

I did say tendency, not totality.

[Raga]

We'll see what they do. Here's hoping that between the stupid political theatre of the shutdown, the impending deadline of Feb. 15, and the push of all these new Congresspeople who actually want to start doing something instead of sitting on their hands that they actually pull a deal out of their ass and change something such that we can stop perpetually kicking the can.

But, I'm not holding my breath.

[Mobius_118]

Considering now that Congress is held by the Democrats, we'll be seeing actual oversight instead of whatever the GOP was doing. Now we'll actually have a functioning government.

Like this Jared Kushner thing that's going to be deeply investigated. He should never have been given a security clearance.

[Raga]

I meant on immigration. The impeachment thing is going nowhere because the Republicans still control the Senate.

[Mobius_118]

Immigration was down due to the late Bush and totality of the Obama Administrations use of border security funding. The wall will not solve any issues, but it'll create many more.

Plus, a ladder can beat a wall. I think we learned this in history.

[Sinekein]

"I found a poll on an alt-left site that shows Americans want higher taxes on the rich"

Yep. I'm absolutely certain you did. Genuinely. I'm also absolutely certain that you could go to a right leaning site and find a poll that says the exact opposite.

Polls are useless unless you can get enough of them together to form an aggregate.

I could show you a presidential approval poll that puts Trump at somewhere in the mid 30's. And then immediately find another one that puts him at 49-50.

Neither of those are likely to be accurate. So you start adding more and more polls with more and more polling methods. And eventually you get something that just might be accurate. Which generally and fairly consistently places him somewhere in the upper 30's to the lower 40's.

I'll admit a big failure on my part because of a link copy/paste miss I didn't check.

Anyway, the poll did come from Fox News.

You see a similar dynamic in which the right is tied squarely to Nazism (or fascism more generally but usually it's specifically Nazism) as the logical end-point of it running amok, but similar efforts to tie the left to Stalinism (or communism more generally) as the end-point of the left run amok are unceasingly combated by various species of the "No True Scotsman" argument (the Soviet Union wasn't really communist, communism isn't really socialism, et al).

I don't think it is completely dishonest. For me, it stems from the fact that Hitler is considered the "theorist" of the far-right due to writing a book (My Kampf) about what his extreme nationalist ideas are. And he also is the guy who put the system in place, with results for all to see.

Now I won't do misery olympics by discussing whether Stalin or Hitler did the worse things, but Stalin was not a theorist. He was not even the guy who put in place the regime he led - Lenin was.

But the actual theorist of the left is Karl Marx, and Marx never led a country in a world war or committed mass murder or genocide out of craziness or paranoia. He was not even a politician, he was a philosopher, whose quality is mostly compared to the likes of Nietzche, Kant or Spinoza, except he laid the theory of a hypothetical "perfect left-wing" society instead (or aside) of talking about happiness, morality or the perfect man.

So there is a clear separation between what theoretically could be an "ideal" left-wing society as seen by Marx, and those who claimed to implement it. In the case of the right, the line is blurred because Hitler is both seen as the theorist, and the tester. And if the theorist himself got those results, then it is hard to try to defend the whole ideology in any way.

Basically, instead of accusing the far-left of always saying "it's not really socialism/communism" - because they can honestly believe in what Marx said, and realize that neither Stalin nor Kim or Pot followed his guidelines - the far-right should seriously try to separate itself from fascism and nazism by referring to theorists who omit outright racism or antisemitism from their ideas.

Now maybe those theorists already exist but are ignored because of Mein Kampf, and maybe they don't because there is a significant part of the far-right who is all too happy to embrace racism and hate, something Hitler was a strong proponent of. I don't know.

Nietzche is often mentioned as a precursor of right-wing ideologies with his Übermensch, but it is in no small part due to being abundantly (mis)quoted and misunderstood by nazis themselves - I'd even say perverted. So, again, right-wing nationalist theorists should work to make it so that Hitler stops being seen as something of a "philosophical reference" for their ideology. Which is harder to do when A) there is no one to seriously replace him and B) a large part of the fanbase outright admires him.

[Sinekein]

So apparently the shutdown is ending, at least temporarily.

While it looks extremely bad for Trump, who forced it and got nothing out of it...I wouldn't put it past him to manage to spin the story in his favor somehow.

The shutdown showed that he was not good at politics, and overall Pelosi handed him his ass on a platter from beginning to end. In particular, due to the nature of the situation, for once he was not always the one "attacking", because he didn't have all cards in hand for that. I mean, sure, he blocked her travel to Afghanistan, but that was after she denied him the SOTU invitation, which is something that could only happen in the event of a shutdown. Basically, he worked himself into a corner because obviously Pelosi has more experience than him with how the American political system works (and she has a backbone, something Trump probably isn't used to working with McConnell or Paul Ryan).

But now, it's over, and we're back to more familiar grounds from him. He won't suffer from the "analysis time", because unless Fox & Friends turn on him (not gonna happen) for not getting the wall, he'll be praised by his usual supports, and criticized by his usual critics. And more importantly, he'll get to control the narrative as he has always done so far, and again I don't put it past him to manage to convince many people that he was a victim of the whole shutdown situation. He's not good at politics, but he's great at communication.

I mean, the Roger Stone arrest gives him a free round of "Witch Hunt" claims for people to forget about that whole shutdown debacle.

[Joblom]

he'll get to control the narrative as he has always done so far, and again I don't put it past him to manage to convince many people that he was a victim of the whole shutdown situation.

Sometimes I wish people like us could exchange realities.

He will say that we've established a pretty clear check point for when the right goes too far and strays off into the weeds and is entering the territory of "Here There Be Dragons" and becomes inherently dangerous in a way that disqualifies them from benefit of the doubt

Well when you look at surveys of the leanings of people in the media, academia, and the federal bureaucracy, the answer as to why we have nothing similar for the left, despite the many very deadly failures of Marxism, is pretty clear to me.

If you want to know who rules you then just ask yourself who you aren't allowed to criticize.

I think only English natives can see "having to learn 2 languages in school" as detrimental. Yeah, more efforts are required. It also creates bilingual kids who will just be better equipped on the job market.

Spoken like a true leftist who has no sense of money, funding, or the logistics of educating a population. Let me explain this for the rest of you though;

When you have to run a public school with millions of students and thousands of teachers, the already huge costs of this are even greater because now you need to teach in two languages. This is a large reason why California's public education system is failing so badly. That's on top of the other problems caused by crashing two cultures together, such as having enclaves where one school is nearly entirely Spanish and another is entirely English.

I didn't use the terms "hate speech" or "cis white male privilege", and you did not bring any "hard evidence". So I assume this sentence is self-criticism.

No, I am criticizing your side of the isle in general. If it doesn't apply to you then it doesn't apply to you.

I'm all for biligual schools personally. Yeah, it's more work for the kids, but in our current world, where everyone on the planet is a few clicks of mouse away, it can be mighty useful. Plus helps to foster a bit more the "citizens of the world" mentality, since learning more languages also come with more knowledge of other cultures that speak those as well.

Yes and I'm all for everybody living like royalty but I don't know how to PAY for that.

Well, globalism is happening whether you want it to or not

Yes, Globalism, the dream of being ruled by un-elected bureaucrats and corporate executives on the other side of the world and living in a massive, globe spawning ghetto dominated by the lowest of the low. Celebrate diversity! ...but erase it first.

[Raga]

How I Knew the #CovingtonBoys Video was Clickbait
Sort by Controversial (This one is s short story if that isn't obvious).
The Covington Scissor

(It's increasingly looking like that Covington Catholic boys video was another intentional social media bomb put in place by Russia or some similar entity whose actual motivation was to create partisan chaos).

[Mobius_118]

Well, globalism is happening whether you want it to or not

Yes, Globalism, the dream of being ruled by un-elected bureaucrats and corporate executives on the other side of the world and living in a massive, globe spawning ghetto dominated by the lowest of the low. Celebrate diversity! ...but erase it first.

Quite frankly it's already happening that way. It's the result of corporate greed and trickle down economics, facilitated by the current dumbfuck in chief.

His willingness to metaphorically suck the dicks of Russian oligarchs should be evidence enough that he's just a puppet, being used by un-elected bureaucrats and corporate executives from across the corporate spectrum.

Keep that in mind. President Obama wasn't a limp-wristed corporate whore like trump. Mr. dealmaker shut down the government over a wall, which isn't going to happen, only to accept the deal that was offered before he shut down the government.

[Joblom]

Quite frankly it's already happening that way. It's the result of corporate greed and trickle down economics, facilitated by the current dumbfuck in chief.

His willingness to metaphorically suck the dicks of Russian oligarchs should be evidence enough that he's just a puppet, being used by un-elected bureaucrats and corporate executives from across the corporate spectrum.

Keep that in mind. President Obama wasn't a limp-wristed corporate whore like trump. Mr. dealmaker shut down the government over a wall, which isn't going to happen, only to accept the deal that was offered before he shut down the government.

Trump may very well be a puppet, though why he felt the need to become public enemy number one in the process is beyond me. I don't think it really matters much whether Trump is puppet and I don't know if Obama was a globalist stooge or just another flavor of Trump; an outsider who got in over his head and realized too late that the true masters of the world will not be swayed or even deterred by something as trivial as an election.

[Vol]

If you want something deleted, you can report the post to me and I'll clean it up, or edit it out. I turned off post deletion when setting up the site for archival purposes.

[Mobius_118]

I don't know, man. President Obama wanted to make healthcare available to all and had to make concessions to make the ACA more like Romneycare for the GOP to even look at it.

Dumbfuck wants a wall that's essentially a symbol of fear and intolerance.

The opinion is yours decide who's better for the US, but the fact is President Obama did more good than harm, and even then the harm is subjective.

[Augustei]

Quite frankly it's already happening that way. It's the result of corporate greed and trickle down economics, facilitated by the current dumbfuck in chief.

His willingness to metaphorically suck the dicks of Russian oligarchs should be evidence enough that he's just a puppet, being used by un-elected bureaucrats and corporate executives from across the corporate spectrum.

Keep that in mind. President Obama wasn't a limp-wristed corporate whore like trump. Mr. dealmaker shut down the government over a wall, which isn't going to happen, only to accept the deal that was offered before he shut down the government.

I don't know, man. President Obama wanted to make healthcare available to all and had to make concessions to make the ACA more like Romneycare for the GOP to even look at it.

The opinion is yours decide who's better for the US, but the fact is President Obama did more good than harm, and even then the harm is subjective.

Yeah most of D.C. is drowing in PAC money, its facilitated by most of the fuckers there, not just Trump. As to sucking the dicks of Russian oligarchs, if that's why he wants to pull the US out of Syria then good, wish someone started sucking em off sooner... Not to mention getting bogged down in the middle east only serves Russia anyway, But Trumps recent actions re: Venezuela seem pretty counter to their desires, I have noticed Trump blowing the Saudis and Israeli's pretty hard though, even though it barely gets mentioned.

President Obama absolutely was a limp wristed corporate whore, if he weren't why did he make the ACA look like Romneycare? it wans't for the GOP like you suggest, it was for the insurance industry. He had a supermajority, a filibuster proof majority, he didn't need the GOPs support at all. Obama was the bitch of investment bankers, hell pretty much his entire cabinet was chosen by Citigroup before he was even electedhe never prosecuted any such investment bankers during his entire time in office, not even after the 2008 crash.

This isn't me saying Trump isn't a corporate whore either, I mean the guy in charge of the economy is a fucking Golden Sachs stooge (funnily enough one that would be in jail now if Kamala Harris presidential hopeful in the DNC, didn't accept his campaign donation and refuse to investigate) but just because Trumps involved in such shit doesn't suddenly canonize Obama.

Also gotta call bullshit on your last quote there, Obama did way more harm than good, and the harm is not subjective. He made the drone program the backbone of contemporary millitaristic approach, the drone program that had a 98% civilian casualty rate, the drone program that killed US citizens under him. He also intervened in Libya, which cause the worst refugee crisis in modern history and brought back the slave trade to the region, the same refugee crisis that has almost single handedly killed the EU, he took the US from involvement in 2 wars to 7, guys foreign policy was fucking abysmal. I'd go so far as to say that in terms of foreign policy, Obama was pretty comparable to George Bush Jnr.

[Augustei]

Notice the difference between these two campaign ads. The first one is a fucking meme, "I'm for good things and against bad things, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls7OSwHMoBc

And the second one is actually centered around a message, a policy, stop the wasteful foreign interventions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPi4VAJtPL4

Were there any sense in the DLC the latter would be their nominee, buuut the world is a dark abysmal shithole so the Democrats will likely pick the former and we can continue the same old bullshit as usual.

[Sinekein]

Without exonerating him, Obama was not a leader in Libya, France and the UK were. Sarkozy is still investigated over his links with Gaddafi and it is becoming more and more obvious he went to war there to shut him up over corruption cases. The accusations against him are ten times worse than Trump's collusion case.

Plus so much shit in the ME or in Europe can be traced back to this war, especially Russia's renewed imperialism, it's not even funny. All that because the fucking midget was a soulless greedy cunt.

[Joblom]

Dumbfuck wants a wall that's essentially a symbol of fear and intolerance.

I'm guessing based on this that you don't lock your car when you park it on the street. Right?

[Mobius_118]

Dumbfuck wants a wall that's essentially a symbol of fear and intolerance.

I'm guessing based on this that you don't lock your car when you park it on the street. Right?

That's one of the more insipid forms of false equivalency I've seen lately. Of course I do. Small scale defensive measures such as locking your doors and windows work because they're small points of entry. Expanding that to a perimeter fence around a property works unless your property is too big to patrol.

The wall would only work if it's built like a military cordon wall, with the primary wall, 100 meters of no-mans land, and the secondary wall lined every 300 meters with a machinegun tower.

There's not enough National Guard nor Big Army soldiers who could man a defensive perimeter like that 24/7/365. A static wall without the proper forces to man it is easy to get over, under, or around.

When longtime law enforcement and locals along the southern border are saying there's no crisis, perhaps a border wall is not the highest of priorities. The trump team had 2 years of absolute control to get the wall process started and legislated. If it wasn't a priority then, it isn't now. And creating a national emergency to get it going only works if you surprise everyone with it instead of announcing over national tv that trump will declare one just so he can get it built.

[Sinekein]

Equating "people who don't want the wall" with "people who don't use locks" is similar to equating "people who want the wall" and "people who never get out of their home for fear of being attacked".

Two equally stupid false equivalences.

[Joblom]

That's one of the more insipid forms of false equivalency I've seen lately. Of course I do.

Naturally. Therefore, you should appreciate the need for a nation to control its borders and maintain those borders. Given that you are so sensible I am sure you are also familiar with the history of the southern border and efforts (and promises) to secure it. Given that, I'm sure you understand the desire for a physical barrier this time.

Hence my implied contention with your emotional statement about "intolerance" which indicated you were not thinking logically about this. I see from the rest of your post that you do have some inclination to be logical about this issue as far as the logistics are concerned. It will be a costly undertaking and will likely be further enhanced in its utility with the addition of drones and other passive systems. There is no point in worrying about the cost since money doesn't actually matter to the federal government.

[Sinekein]

Therefore, you should appreciate the need for a nation to control its borders and maintain those borders. Given that you are so sensible I am sure you are also familiar with the history of the southern border and efforts (and promises) to secure it. Given that, I'm sure you understand the desire for a physical barrier this time.

Given the historical record of physical barriers between countries - Berlin Wall, Great Wall of China, Maginot line - I'm really not sure anyone understands that last leap of logic. "It never worked, ergo we should build one".

The one wall that somewhat works is in Israel, and it's because it's incredibly heavily manned AND because the Israeli army can operate on both sides of that wall. Note however that building it has not made anything to solve the crisis it was an answer to - the Israel-Palestine conflict. So thinking that spending billions on a wall will magically make migrations disappear in latin America...

The funniest part is that there is an actual, gigantic migrant crisis in America. It just doesn't affect the US. It's between Venezuela and its neighbors.

If the Republicans are hellbent on securing that border, they could use the 5 billions to recruit new border patrol members. I assume they don't make 100 grand a year, so with the wall's budget, it would probably be possible to hire several hundreds of them and give them proper equipment to operate - vehicles, choppers, communication systems, etc.

[Joblom]

Given the historical record of physical barriers between countries - Berlin Wall, Great Wall of China, Maginot line - I'm really not sure anyone understands that last leap of logic. "It never worked, ergo we should build one".

The one wall that somewhat works is in Israel, and it's because it's incredibly heavily manned AND because the Israeli army can operate on both sides of that wall. Note however that building it has not made anything to solve the crisis it was an answer to - the Israel-Palestine conflict. So thinking that spending billions on a wall will magically make migrations disappear in latin America...

Contradiction and words in my mouth.

If the Republicans are hellbent on securing that border

Nobody in Washington or anyone with any real power wants the border secured. Long term consequences be damned, an open border helps keep the cost of labor low and pandering to the (illegal) immigrants and their children is an easy means of acquiring and securing political power. The levers of power in Washington are not being used for the good of the country.

[Mobius_118]

That's one of the more insipid forms of false equivalency I've seen lately. Of course I do.

Naturally. Therefore, you should appreciate the need for a nation to control its borders and maintain those borders. Given that you are so sensible I am sure you are also familiar with the history of the southern border and efforts (and promises) to secure it. Given that, I'm sure you understand the desire for a physical barrier this time.

Hence my implied contention with your emotional statement about "intolerance" which indicated you were not thinking logically about this. I see from the rest of your post that you do have some inclination to be logical about this issue as far as the logistics are concerned. It will be a costly undertaking and will likely be further enhanced in its utility with the addition of drones and other passive systems. There is no point in worrying about the cost since money doesn't actually matter to the federal government.

And I'm sure you're perfectly aware that border crossings went down significantly since before the Obama Administration, and that the Obama Administration was quick to deport those that overstayed visas, as well as his policies to fund increased border security without a wall. Which worked.

And seeing as how most drugs come in through legal points of entry, and most illegal immigrants come in via airport, you can't tell me that a wall would do anything other than waste resources and give the ignorant something they can physically see as a symbol of defense against the unwashed hordes. Which, I reiterate, will do nothing to alleviate the actual problem.

The perfect example of an illegal immigrant is none other than Melania Trump. She came in on a Genius Visa, got married, had an anchor baby, and chain migrated her family to the US. Given that she can't make a single proposal without plagiarizing someone, that Genius Visa is heavily suspect to be fraudulent.

[Raga]

So there is a clear separation between what theoretically could be an "ideal" left-wing society as seen by Marx, and those who claimed to implement it. In the case of the right, the line is blurred because Hitler is both seen as the theorist, and the tester. And if the theorist himself got those results, then it is hard to try to defend the whole ideology in any way.

Sure, but how many failed implementations ending in spectacular collapse and/or genocides and mass purges in which hundreds of thousands die do you need before you can officially say "You know, maybe the problem isn't us but with the underlying ideas being fundamentally crappy." It's kinda like that old saw of "If every ex you've ever had is an irredeemable asshole, the problem is probably *you.*" That degree of separation from the philosopher serves only two purposes as far as I can see

1) It redeems Marx into the "well-intentioned idiot" category instead of the "outright monster" category that Hitler occupies and
2) it allows for an awful lot of rationalization and denialism in support of fundamentally deadly ideas that have been proven time and again to be deadly

Basically, instead of accusing the far-left of always saying "it's not really socialism/communism" - because they can honestly believe in what Marx said, and realize that neither Stalin nor Kim or Pot followed his guidelines - the far-right should seriously try to separate itself from fascism and nazism by referring to theorists who omit outright racism or antisemitism from their ideas.

Most any non-racist paleoconservative will do well for this. Roger Scruton as one example off the top of my head. Christopher Lasch. Patrick J. Deneen. Alisdair McIntyre. Moreover, these totally are people who come up all the time on the intellectual right. Not so much among neo-fascists, who are actually proponents of fascism after all, but various species of other thought which routinely get called fascist even though they aren't because they have some watery aspect of something approximating "blood and soil" in them.

These people exist, but there's a concerted effort to either pretend that they don't or to try to lump them in with Carl Schmitt & co.

[Raga]

An additional thought on the underlying problem with Marxism is that it's basis ultimately rests in dialectical materialism. This is especially pernicious because it is simultaneously false (as most historical metanarratives are because they overly simplify things) but it's also aggressively non-metaphysical and claims to be "scientific" unlike most other metanarratives.

This allows it to debunk pretty much any interpretation of "whys" it doesn't like for being metaphysical (along with any standard of values based on those whys - liberalism, Christianity, whatever) while simultaneously excusing any problems that arises in implementations of socialism by saying it went awry only because it fell prey to those various aforementioned false metaphysical values (take your pick of communist insult words - bourgeois values, kulak values, fascist values, whatever).

So basically the way that fascism always has some racialized scapegoat "other" hardbaked into its philosophy such that fear of that "other" is simultaneously used to explain the need for fascism's existence *and* to explain fascism's own failings (the Jews/Bolshevik conspirators sabotaged it!), socialism has a similar scapegoat, but it's one based on a corrupted frame of mind as the ultimate evil rather than being racially degenerate.

It's pretty easy to dismantle cockamamie ideas about racial purity or whatever with like high school level genetics, but how exactly do you go about proving that somebody isn't "bourgeoisie" or that somebody *is* a good "revolutionary?" I can come up with some stupid pedigreed definition of precisely what a Jew is (and the Nazis did) and those can be torn apart with simplicity, but what exactly are "bourgeoisie values?" vs. whatever category of thing a good comrade is supposed to have?

"Revolutionary values" are inherently abstracted and metaphysical in the same way that "Christian values" or "democratic values" are but because of dialectical materialism, the guy in charge gets to claim they are objective and scientific. Thus No True Scotsman is wired into socialism from the ground up:

"Initiative A failed horribly because the underlying ideas stank? Nyet, comrade, it failed because those dirty kulaks with their bourgeoisie values infiltrated it and corrupted it! It is based on truth and pure principle! If only we can keep them out, it can't possibly fail!"

(This is really a critique of utopianism in general I suppose or at least *materialist* utopianism. I'm not a William F. Buckley fan for the most part but he was correct in one sense: "Don't immanentize the eschaton!)

[Raga]

*Three post obsessive limit

ICE force feeding detainees on hunger strike

Why is this cruel? Seriously? How is not feeding them anything but "anybody who goes on hunger strikes gets their way by default?" And it's not just here but for any situation where people go on hunger strikes in any kind of facility where other people are responsible for their health and safety.

If you don't feed them and they starve, it proves conditions are cruel because you have people starving to death in your facility.

If you relent and give them what they want so they will eat, they basically win by strong-arms-manship. Where's the end of that? And moreoever where are the things you give them coming from? Do you have the authority to grant it? How will you pay for it? Etc.

If you can't feed them but letting them starve is also cruel, how is there any option left but "whenever someone goes on hunger strike, you have to give them what they want."

[Vol]

Vice is laying off 10% of their workforce (250 or so) in order to try and actually be profitable. May all those newly unemployed people find their way to a coding bootcamp as their archaic industry burns.

It's pretty easy to dismantle cockamamie ideas about racial purity or whatever with like high school level genetics, but how exactly do you go about proving that somebody isn't "bourgeoisie" or that somebody *is* a good "revolutionary?" I can come up with some stupid pedigreed definition of precisely what a Jew is (and the Nazis did) and those can be torn apart with simplicity, but what exactly are "bourgeoisie values?" vs. whatever category of thing a good comrade is supposed to have?

It does not help that the manner of speaking about the topic is a confusing amalgamation of taboo, old wive's tales, a pinch of research, and culturally acceptable bigotry, while an earnest, scouring look at each other is verboten, plastered over with simplistic slogans as a moral safety blanket. We're all the same, except that's racist now, and ignore how the best runners are black and the best weightlifters are white.

All the people that descended from those who left Africa are inherently different because they had to adapt to survive in new environments, right? Nah, but they did interbreed with Neanderthals, which surely had no cognitive effects, or the dozens of thousands of years of relative geographic isolation.

The point should be more, "There are differences between us, as individuals, as families, as races, but it's mostly irrelevant for non-medical purposes. There is no moral way to apply different standards based on such broad categories, even if there is provable, inherent racial traits." That also does not mean there is anything wrong with someone wanting to keep their line "pure" insofar as they choose their partners, there is no moral imperative to "diversify" your bloodline.

If you can't feed them but letting them starve is also cruel, how is there any option left but "whenever someone goes on hunger strike, you have to give them what they want."

That's exactly the idea. No win situation. The left is generally better at this than the right, as the right is forever on the defense to prove they're not Nazis. Feed them, you're a monster for using force to cram food down their throats. Don't feed them, you're a monster starving poor, innocent refugees who only wanted a better life and The American Dream to _death_.

I'd let them starve. Have a live stream of food being presented and left there, uneaten. After a few die, if any have the guts to go that far, that'll be the end of it.

[Raga]

That also does not mean there is anything wrong with someone wanting to keep their line "pure" insofar as they choose their partners, there is no moral imperative to "diversify" your bloodline.

Sure, so long as it's not compulsory such as miscegenation laws in the Jim Crow South or what the Nazis were doing, which is what I was talking about.

(And the voluntary "purity" litmus thing is hardly the soul province of textbook racists. I read this story once "The Last Black Hero" by Derek Bell, a critical race theorist, that was basically a bunch of moral angsting over whether or not it's okay for a black man to hook up with a white woman. After all the angsting it came to an extremely reluctant decision that it *might* be okay if:

1. the white woman was schooled in black history and culture and fully invested in critical race theory style race struggle while
2. realizing she was not black and never would be black and thus being willing to take a permanent back seat in all instances where a discussion of race might come up because of the in-authenticity of her voice and only after
3. the black dude in question subjected himself to some sort of borderline struggle session in which he seeks the absolution of black women for picking a "trophy" over them and that they forgive him and can properly vet the white chick in question adequately meets 1. & 2.)

However, it's usually stupid whenever it's put forward.

[Mobius_118]

Probably because they're being fed via nose hose.

That tends to be looked down upon, especially since some of the hunger-strikers need a translator for Punjabi and aren't getting one, because one brown person looks like another.

It's a human rights crisis created by the trump administration.

[Vol]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkTopSKo1xs

Starts at around the 1 minute mark, the Virginia governor speaking about the new abortion bill with regards to babies that "may be" nonviable or severely deformed: "If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

Meanwhile Mississippi has banned abortions past 15 weeks. Abortion vacations might be a way for certain states to pad their revenues, actually. "Laxest regulations in the country, it's not a person until the state says so, and our state doesn't say a lot! Bring a friend to get scraped out with you, get a chance to win a week at the Sophistry Spa!"

Sure, so long as it's not compulsory such as miscegenation laws in the Jim Crow South or what the Nazis were doing, which is what I was talking about.

...

3. the black dude in question subjected himself to some sort of borderline struggle session in which he seeks the absolution of black women for picking a "trophy" over them and that they forgive him and can properly vet the white chick in question adequately meets 1. & 2.)

However, it's usually stupid whenever it's put forward.

At what level of power to compel would you take umbrage?

Purely hypothetical, but say if a couple dozen thousand white people got together somewhere to found an all-white community. And they come up with a purity test to deal with Sicilians and Hispanics, have enough genetic diversity to last in perpetuity, etc. They build their homes, farms, roads, businesses, and so on, build walls, and start living as they will. All non-whites are firmly turned away, any mixed babies that somehow are born are cast out with the mother. They are open and proud white supremacists, but do not commit proactive violence.

Should the state that claims power over them interfere, and if so, in what manner?

It's not borderline, struggle sessions are alive and well. We simply don't need to have people physically sit in the middle of a crowd being shamed and abused anymore. Though I do get a kick out of some black supremacist beliefs, it swerves into childish, magical nonsense and made up history right away.

[Raga]

Should the state that claims power over them interfere, and if so, in what manner?

I guess so long as the purity litmus test isn't codified I would say that the state has no business interfering. So basically the state can't regulate social pressure for the most part and even that's not because I find the idea intrinsically appalling, but because it would be almost impossible to create coherent legislation for that. We have fits with something as basic as sexual consent let alone something this potentially complicated.

But the state is well within its purview to break up actually racist exclusionary codifications like "no you can't set up racist zoning laws that prevent black people from buying houses in this neighborhood" and "no you can't arbitrarily refuse to serve black people in this business simply because they're black" and so on.

No Jim Crow basically.

[Sinekein]

Sure, but how many failed implementations ending in spectacular collapse and/or genocides and mass purges in which hundreds of thousands die do you need before you can officially say "You know, maybe the problem isn't us but with the underlying ideas being fundamentally crappy." It's kinda like that old saw of "If every ex you've ever had is an irredeemable asshole, the problem is probably *you.*" That degree of separation from the philosopher serves only two purposes as far as I can see

1) It redeems Marx into the "well-intentioned idiot" category instead of the "outright monster" category that Hitler occupies and
2) it allows for an awful lot of rationalization and denialism in support of fundamentally deadly ideas that have been proven time and again to be deadly

That's because Marx had the intellectual honesty to admit his own flaws. He mentioned himself that his Communist Party Manifesto was outdated - during his own lifetime (Engels did too).

There is nothing in Marx' ideas about purges, or state police, or substituting the bourgeois ruling class with an equally if not more oppressive ruling party. Those were later adaptations stemming in part from the failure of Paris' Commune - basically, a "pragmatic" take on his ideas that emptied them of their original meaning (because you replaced one oppression of the working class by another, which is exactly what Marx wanted not to do).

The "communist" regimes were inspired by one another, like a grape-vine. They were akin to adaptations of adaptations of adaptations of what Marx said, to the point that the original meaning of his ideas were pretty long lost - but he was used as an intellectual authority anyway.

Marx is no more responsible of so-called "communist" regimes in the XXth century than Nietzche is of fascist regimes.

[Raga]

Marx is no more responsible of so-called "communist" regimes in the XXth century than Nietzche is of fascist regimes.

I'm not saying he's morally culpable. I'm saying that at this point it's been demonstrated that the ideas are flawed enough that no implementation of them is ever going to work and that when they go really wrong they can have truly deadly consequences.

It's sort of like early eugenicists. Most of those guys actually were well-intentioned but at this point it's been demonstrated that not only does genetics not really work the way that they thought that it worked, but that trying to implement their ideas even with good intentions pretty much always produces really bad results.

Marx doesn't have to be evil or morally culpable in order for people to say that his ideas should largely go on the trash heap of history.

[Joblom]

The point should be more, "There are differences between us, as individuals, as families, as races, but it's mostly irrelevant for non-medical purposes.

It's hardly irrelevant; it should be taken into account when setting government policy. The issue of the day should be that we need to talk about these things openly and rationally, to ensure that ethical and rational people are the ones driving the discussion and ultimately shaping the future policies and cultural moors. Denying reality and wishing it away will only promote more failed policies, degrading life for everyone, and will also drive the discussion into the hands of the most extreme.

I understand the fear that the recognition of human sub races and their differences (especially cognitive) causes; it could be used to justify making entire races of people second-class citizens or worse. However that is only likely when recognition is being swept under the rug and discussion is refused.

There is nothing in Marx' ideas about purges, or state police, or substituting the bourgeois ruling class with an equally if not more oppressive ruling party. Those were later adaptations stemming in part from the failure of Paris' Commune - basically, a "pragmatic" take on his ideas that emptied them of their original meaning (because you replaced one oppression of the working class by another, which is exactly what Marx wanted not to do).

The "communist" regimes were inspired by one another, like a grape-vine. They were akin to adaptations of adaptations of adaptations of what Marx said, to the point that the original meaning of his ideas were pretty long lost - but he was used as an intellectual authority anyway.

"THIS time it will work," says every Communist ever. It's mind cancer.

And I'm sure you're perfectly aware that border crossings went down significantly since before the Obama Administration, and that the Obama Administration was quick to deport those that overstayed visas, as well as his policies to fund increased border security without a wall. Which worked.

This is misleading and irrelevant to the discussion at hand. None of that was nearly enough. It is the demographic trends I wanted halted or even reversed so that the nation can remain stable and prosperous for future generations.

Is "the wall" the best way to achieve this? Hardly, but at least it is something physical and it will help, even if only marginally. We both know this isn't really about the wall or about money though, don't we?

[TTTX]

That's because Marx had the intellectual honesty to admit his own flaws. He mentioned himself that his Communist Party Manifesto was outdated - during his own lifetime (Engels did too).

There is nothing in Marx' ideas about purges, or state police, or substituting the bourgeois ruling class with an equally if not more oppressive ruling party. Those were later adaptations stemming in part from the failure of Paris' Commune - basically, a "pragmatic" take on his ideas that emptied them of their original meaning (because you replaced one oppression of the working class by another, which is exactly what Marx wanted not to do).

The "communist" regimes were inspired by one another, like a grape-vine. They were akin to adaptations of adaptations of adaptations of what Marx said, to the point that the original meaning of his ideas were pretty long lost - but he was used as an intellectual authority anyway.

Marx is no more responsible of so-called "communist" regimes in the XXth century than Nietzche is of fascist regimes.

Doesn't stop people from either interpret or just make stuff up for various reasons, Religion is great example of it and history have lots of proof of it.

[Sinekein]

It's sort of like early eugenicists. Most of those guys actually were well-intentioned but at this point it's been demonstrated that not only does genetics not really work the way that they thought that it worked, but that trying to implement their ideas even with good intentions pretty much always produces really bad results.

We have been talking about abortion recently. Abortion in the case of heavy genetic issues for the fetus is pretty largely accepted nowadays. I'm not talking about myopia, more motor neuron disease or cystic fibrosis.

That's pretty close if not exactly what some eugenicists say. It's only a small part of their ideas. There is another side that delves into genetic superiority that shouldn't be touched with a ten-foot pole but that part seems pretty reasonable.

Marx doesn't have to be evil or morally culpable in order for people to say that his ideas should largely go on the trash heap of history.

So like the aforementioned example, making the generalization that Marx' ideas are awful is equally wrong. What's wrong with Marx are the solutions he proposes to solve the issues of capitalism - and that's what political regimes will rely on - but his diagnostics on society and power dynamics tend to be extremely spot-on, if a bit dated by the evolution of technology and the occurrence of globalisation - but globalisation fits pretty much right in with Marx' class theories, the main difference being that now there is a geographical separation between the bourgeoisie/aristocracy and the workforce.

So there are some of his ideas - no private property, for example - that should be thrown away. But dismissing him altogether as a "crazy commie" is incredibly dumb. Because unlike Hitler, he actually made a lot of sense, and was a philosopher before being a political activist.

I mean, he theoretized class struggle, and I don't think there is another country in the world where the words "blue collar" or "white collar" have more significance than the U.S., who are not exactly a communist regime.

Doesn't stop people from either interpret or just make stuff up for various reasons, Religion is great example of it and history have lots of proof of it.

An apt comparison. Marx is used by the far-left kind of like Jesus is used by the Christian Evangelists. By most accounts, even if he wasn't perfect, Jesus was probably far more chill than most Evangelists make him sound.

The Marx worship might actually be an interesting example of the need of leading figures among humans, no matter how toxic this reliance on idols or saviors can be.