100ProofTollBooth
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User ID: 2039
100ProofTollBooth
22hr ago
But yes your overwrought "I can't even leave my red state or I'll be persecuted" schtick is silly, false and just wrong at an objective level.
Why do you need to say this?
Up to this comment, I think you could summarize the exchange thusly:
TollBooth: Something something, I'm a red stater, get off my lawn
French: "That's goofy. You're goofy. Stop being goofy"
TollBooth: "Fine. You got me. Here's me being tongue-in-cheek and a reasonable cessation to our mostly pointless disagreement"
And then you have to go "you are just wrong at an objective level."
Y tho?
100ProofTollBooth
1d ago
the world is a big beautiful place and just because people have a different opinion on some issues doesn't make it dangerous to visit other states or countries.
Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Do some traveling, step out of your comfort zone and you'll find that your fears are unwarranted.
Nice try, NSA.
This is fox news 80 year old grandpa levels of living in a fear bubble.
Get. Off. My. Lawn.
Look, the above section is playful and obvious trolling because you and I just aren't going to agree. Do I have ideological consternation when I'm in liberal cities / states - sure. Is it a real, palpable "fear"? - of course not. Then again, ideas and values are truly important to me and I would trade extra income in California for a little more demonstrated freedom in Idaho.
"But, but, but, you can travel! Don't artificially limit yourself, especially not with this Fox News fear mongering." Well, it's kind of my decision to do what I want for me, right? (so long as I'm not breaking any laws etc.) And trying to "convince" me otherwise by kind of insulting me or boomer-hectoring me to "get out of my comfort zone" is not a winning strategy.
It is just a bit boggling to me
Be boggled, then. I'll stay over here.
100ProofTollBooth
1d ago
To this and @2rafa's comment below;
Please don't slip into blackpill "debugging authoritarianism."
The solution is simply less legislation and regulation over. Less bureaucracy, less gover-nance.
One of the reasons I like to describe myself as a Willmoore Kendall conservative is because he specifically talks about the dirty trick of citizens of all political persuasions now (which is to say, in the 1960s!) taking as axiomatic a level of daily government interference in their lives that leaders from the founding fathers through to Lincoln and all the way up to (just before) FDR would have found pants-shittingly insane and illiberal.
The eager temptation nowadays is to use those evil powers for good (which is an inherent and intractable contradiction) - I.e. having an "authoritarian white boy summer" to drain the swamp or whatever. If you accomplish even those admirable ends by illiberal means, you've just set conditions for a counter-movement to swing back the other way in even greater force. "They did this, so we gotta do that!" is always a good rallying cry.
I'll admit that I don't have a great solution or even strategy for how to yield these ends with non-evil means. I think SCOTUS will help very slowly and over a very long term. I think the Federal bureaucracy may eventually collapse under its own weight and be re-organized. I can already see that the PMC factories we call universities are burning themselves down. But, "victory" (however you may define it) is still far from guaranteed. To get somehow even more handwavy, I think a byproduct of an actual kinetic conflict with China could be a revitalization in patriotic citizenship that may contribute to a larger suspicion of hyper-individualism. Then again, without a large scale draft of military recruitment effort, the war will be "a Washington thing" that is actually a fucking everybody thing. I'm starting to go in circles here, so I'll cut it off.
100ProofTollBooth
1d ago
more "correct"/rational reaction.
No, quite the opposite. I am explicitly stating that those in the situation of which I gave a criteria (business owner, parent, homeowner) creates a shift in values that would precipitate a change in voting.
Politics is the organization and operation at scale of a marketplace of values. I'll never make the claim that conservatives are more rational than liberals. I will always make the claim that the conservative set of values is better for a functioning society and that liberal values are far more about individual level emotional validation than society level outcomes.
100ProofTollBooth
1d ago
And this is why anyone who starts their own business and, therefore, has to file quarterly immediately starts hollering "taxes are too damn high!" .... and then you also start paying self-employment tax.
Show me a person who:
- Owns their own business (and, relatedly, pays for their own healthcare)
- Has children as dependents
- Owns their home
And I will show you someone who wants to vote for a conservative with their mind and wallet, but may let their heart and social signaling sway them to voting for a liberal.
100ProofTollBooth
1d ago
I FEAR NOTHING.
I believe the odds of the State artificially and outlandishly prosecuting me for something like self-defense or free expression go up when in blue states. Especially if the news cycle is just right.
100ProofTollBooth
1d ago
My community’s source in the DHS tells us that this plan failed because the agents just kept going native.
"This Jesus feller's got a few good goddamn points! Oh - sorry"
100ProofTollBooth
2d ago
Both Hamm and Cavill are "face attractive" hall of famers, as well.
I agree with everything said about frame size. Add in above average height (that mythical 6' barrier). With those basic ingredients, your next step is building a social status and generally signalling competence and potential (good career, respected by beers, etc.) There are interesting memes that float around the gym-bro internet (these are my people) the hint at the enduring loneliness even after years of "looksmaxxing." Lots of this is tongue-in-cheek, however, the hinted at truth is that, beyond a basic level of fitness, you hit diminishing returns quickly save for those women who really geek out over biceps or something. Especially as you round 30, you need to have all of the "longer term" attributes going as well - career, social life, etc.
But then there are the likes of Cavill and Hamm. These dudes won the genetic lottery. Hamm is notorious for his dad bod. But his face is so epically GOAT'ed (as the kids say) that I think he's largely responsible for the phenomenon of women saying they like dad bods. Think about it - it's not so much a woman saying she wants a dad bod as saying "If he looks like John Hamm, I don't care about him going to the gym." Pretty girl privilege is real, but I also believe that four-standard-deviations-of-handsome privilege is also real for men. I mean, that's the whole plot of John Hamm on 30 rock
100ProofTollBooth
2d ago
Yes, that's the one.
I take your reply as meaning "Because the Schedule F reforms were done at the end of the term and, further, that they stand a reasonable chance of being undone by SCOTUS, one can't count that as striking back at the civil service."
That's a perfectly fine position to take. Let me ask, then, what is the rubric for a successful strike against the civil service? And how does a President get there in one fell swoop?
To me, this feels like goalpost shifting and unrealistically high expectations. As an aside, I"m saying all of this as a never-Trumper. I don't like advocating for DJT for really any reason. Still, I do see things like the Schedule F effort to me meaningful attempts to root out what is perhaps the most entrenched self-serving bureaucratic mechanism in American history.
100ProofTollBooth
2d ago
When has he ever struck back at the civil service?
Check out his admin's work towards revising Schedule F. That actually would be a huge swamp drainer.
100ProofTollBooth
2d ago
while I am wrists deep
Both wrists in there?
Fucking savage, man!
100ProofTollBooth
2d ago
"A man and a woman should never speak the same language."
Sorry to hijack this a little -
Does anyone have any zero-language overlap romance stories of personal experience? I've read about these online (some of the old and new PUA blogs) and, controlling for the sometimes obvious embellishment, it does seem like one can sense attraction from/to another even without any real language ability. What's more, it seems like these are often some of the more especially rewarding trysts.
This is mostly for idle curiosity sake. Becoming a passport bro is not on my list as leaving even my Red state is a thought I abhor.
100ProofTollBooth
2d ago
Request: a while back someone on here was reading a long book and posting a series about it on Irish history around the IRA and the Easter Rising, what was the book? I can't remember.
Smells like Trinity by Leon Uris.
100ProofTollBooth
2d ago
100ProofTollBooth
3d ago
The Catholic faith reveres a human woman as the "Queen of Heaven" above all other human born men. Extending Marian reverence further, it is believed that her willingness (choice) to bear that child led directly to thecomplete salvation of mankind. That is the model for femininity / motherhood. That's a pretty excellent model.
Sure, you can point to millions of examples of flawed humans perhaps not living up to this. But the ideological / theological apparatus is there. Handwaving it away with your sweeping comment...
For the great majority of the history of western civilization, philosophers, theologians, and intellectuals, whether Pagan, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or atheist, have been happy to state that actually, women are just strictly inferior to men.
...Is to obviously discard any information that could be contrary to your assertion.
You can't make motherhood 'prestigious' because motherhood has never been prestigious.
It's the only way the species can continue. I ... I can't think of anything more prestigious.
100ProofTollBooth
6d ago
This just makes me want to start sponsoring Knight of Columbus Taverns all across the country. Bolt 'em on to the local parish. Have to be a local or sponsored by one to attend.
Perhaps the Holy Spirit - in the form of the fully alcoholic blood of Christ and its various Irish and Scottish cousins - can move the younguns to form holy unions.
100ProofTollBooth
7d ago
I really like this response, I just want to pull out some more details.
"The missing step A" -- Is this the initial meeting between two young people? From what I can gather, it looks like you're saying that tradcath communities are great for getting a young couple on rails into a marriage, but bad at getting Harry to meet Sally at the dance. Is this accurate?
100ProofTollBooth
7d ago
- In several of your other replies, you bring up demographics. I'd take the optimistic viewpoint that demographics are always in favor of those who are both pro-natal and able to raise their children with stability into adulthood. On the left, it's fair to say that those with the means are often minimally natal (single kids) or actively anti-natal. The new NPR lady has a bunch of tweets about the "moral hazard" of bringing children into the world. Those without the means to raise children, the accidentally pregnant a lot of the time lower class of any and all colors, don't tend to place their children in a position to thrive in life, let along seize the reins of power. The most well organized of those - evangelicals - are broadly in agreement with my social policies. So, I'm counting a lot of wins. I don't see the 35 year old purple-hair DEI consultants married to bicurious cucks suddenly deciding to raise a brood of their own. They may try to indoctrinate my kids, but see more about that below.
The current PMC populated by boomers, some Gen-Xers, and woke millenials is, historically speaking, a weird outlier. That the PMC even exists, let alone the level of power and influence it enjoys, is a direct byproduct of the amazing economic conditions from 1945-2005. DEI departments and woke education master's degree holders only exist in a society that has so much extra wealth that these people can do their non-jobs and not starve. In a real economic depression, a lot of them get canned quick. In a period of re-expanding growth, you'll see the actually productive surpass them and, frankly, hold a louder microphone. Examples: Mr. Musk and Mr. Thiel.
Returning to the primary point, who are those communities who have both the fecundity and financial-ity (i really wanted to rhyme to work, sorry) to build the next leaders of society? Well, we already told you.
-
You bring up the "that's a lot of ifs" argument quite a bit. I'd say that any large scale strategy is predicated on risk-adjusted decisions about how to allocate resources and then conduct operations. If you're waiting for an absolutely bulletproof plan that is blindingly obvious in its multi-decade efficacy, I think you might want to talk to some dead Chinese fellows about how that works out.
-
"The state is coming for your kids and will also maybe kill you." Although a bit dramatic, I agree with you. I have faith that that tide will turn back and, in some pockets, already has. Glen Youngkin won in VA largely because he said "Hey, stop teaching kids woke stuff in public school." The college protests of late are also great fuel to the fire for school choice and hefty parental veto rights. The most indoctrinated kids are paralyzingly anxious and fail to continue to exert the same level of cultural influence their parents did. If working more than 3 hours a day creates "trauma" for you, I'm not worried about you outbuilding me.
-
"What if it is already too late and we're fucked." Well, then we're fucked. And I get to die and go home to Jesus, which is already the point. I know that's an argumentative cop out and I truly am sorry for it, but when people keep going down the recursive rabbit hole of "what if you're wrong about that? and that? and that?" Then, I guess if so many of my past, present, and future assumptions are all horribly flawed, I deserve the apocalypse. The Good News (read that capitalization carefully!) is that I, like Lizzy Warren, Have A Plan For That.
100ProofTollBooth
8d ago
They’re bankrupt and trads are scared of student loans. Right now the trend is against small Catholic colleges
I didn't know this. Thanks.
who are shifting towards charismatic Catholics to make up for it.
So .... protestants.
the broken marriage market
Yeah, I was remiss to have left that out. I think part of the thing about the Gen-Z Catholics that is worrisome is they think that tradcathin' will make marriage easier. It won't, it just makes the commitment to the idea that much more serious. The massive external danger is that the secular world looks at marriage as an easy in-and-out situation that one can simply eject from if they feel like it gets in the way of "who you are" (or other such nonsense).
100ProofTollBooth
9d ago
I am this demographic.
Political consciousness came online after college as a Reganite conservative. Realized there were some contradictions there but, more importantly, that the rot started far earlier. Progress to a William F. Buckley conservative and am now at the Willmoore Kendall level.
And am tradcath.
There is no "promised land" of small-c conservatism in the US. There is no city or state aside from maybe Idaho / Wyoming that is truly conservative all the way thru (and those I just listed have actually taken the libertarian blackpill). This is not to say it's a Lost Cause (is this the Jubal Early forum?!). The mission of small-c conservatives right now is pretty much lawfare. And, looking at SCOTUS and the legacy of Mitch McConnell, it's actually going damn well. Then again, the reaction to Dobbs has shown that America is so used to elective abortion that it doesn't actually want to give it up, despite posturing to the contrary. This is even more true with social spending and direct cash transfers.
On a social level, tradcath communities are real, vibrant, and actually growing especially among the Youths. The problem is internecine conflict. Some Gen-Z tradcaths are trying to be "more catholic than the Pope." YouTube Catholics seem to be largely YouTube first, Catholic second. The Pope himself ... well ... Jesus. The positive side is that it truly is a durable community. Moms (and Dads) routinely group babysit, there's always a potluck or sort of open dinner thing happening, people trade tips on schools, make business deals and connections, plan vacations together. A parish with a strong tradcath element (a giveaway is at least one Traditional Latin Mass per week) actually uses the Church building itself as a center for community instead of "spooky once a week lecture hall." This can all be done with relative ease because everyone is already one hundred percent bought in to a shared understanding of the True essence of morality, existence, and God. So, yeah, social trust levels are high. I do sometimes enjoy thinking about progressive families coming face to face with a playdate situation in which they have to think, "holy shit, I don't actually know anything about how this other family views the world, and I'm giving them my child for an afternoon." The kayfabe of "respect all backgrounds" disappears real quick.
The issue of concern both with small c-conservatism and American tradcaths is that we fail to avoid becoming fatalist crusaders. It's actually not that big of a deal to be a permanent minority so long as we can self-preserve (read: tradcaths babies on one hand, and politicians from rural states that have a structural advantage in the Senate on the other - even if those states are actually libertarian in concept). I do worry that there's a temptation to borrow from the Snake Handler Pentecostals and the Massive Resistance Southern Democrats to go on a campaign of self-immolation just to show how righteous we are.
A side bet for you: I would expect enrollment at small Catholic colleges (note: not seminaries, just explicitly catholic affiliated / run colleges) to spike for a few years.
100ProofTollBooth
25d ago
Agree with other replies but will offer one counterexample; to the extent they still exist, actual cowboys tend to have almost comically good physiques. The buff-but-not-puffy bodies to maybe "just" extremely wire-y (I.e. very trim or cut with ropey muscles).
My theory is that the specific nature of range work means that cowboys can't afford to tote around extra weight all day, so they naturally develop a leaner body composition, yet, the power / strength activities of handling livestock also mean they don't fall into marathon runner levels of non-muscle.
100ProofTollBooth
27d ago
Some of the best examples of this are the Millenial/Gen-Z Catholic YouTubers who post video monologues with clickbait thumbnails and have been cycling through the zesty topics of Porn, Exorcism, and anti-Feminism recently.
But I guess they have a point - The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius mostly involve sitting quietly for several hours. There can't possibly be an audience for that
100ProofTollBooth
27d ago
Some of the best commentary on dealing with (especially) old Testament literalism is from David Bentley Hart. The long and short of it is that the Old Testament should be read similarly to how The Odyssey and The Iliad are read. It's a highly stylized, almost poetic epic tale that uses vibrant language and imagery to convey its points. It's not a blow by blow catalog of facts. Add on top of this the translation-upon-translation issues and you can account for the fact that 900 year old men were popping out kids left and right when they weren't running away from Rapin'Burg after the Slip-'N-Slide from the sky overflowed.
100ProofTollBooth
27d ago
I mean, n of 1 here, but I became religious slowly over the course of years and it all started by getting deep into analytic philosophy and rationalism in an attempt to merely "be better at thinking." I'll spare you my superhero internet warrior origin story, but my path to Christ started in a firmly modern, PMC, intellectualist garden.
The ironic part is that I also agree with you. Use whatever version of "no atheists in foxholes" aphorism you want, but it is true that a lot of people turn to religion in types of trouble. You can cope by gesturing at placebo and self-serving cognitive biases if you like, but doesn't it remain knee-slappingly silly to imagine the idea of someone shouting "I"D BETTER UPDATE MY PRIORS" when they're on a plane with two blown engines.
Hmm, okay. There's something here.
Totally agree with your latest comment (especially like the Nash equilibrium usage) ... And also agree that the big changes do happen under an authoritarian model (especially if a crisis is involved; Civil War, WW2, 2008 Financial Crisis).
But my value assertion remains the same - we shouldn't ever really be ok with an authoritarian system.
So, I guess the question / problem becomes - I am being naive and wishful in thought that it will never happen again (probably?) If it's unavoidable, should we seek to steer towards "conservative authoritarianism", however that odd term is defined? I take it that that's roughly your/@2rafa's position?
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