Belisarius
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No bio...
User ID: 2663
Maybe no agency might be fringe. But women having lower agency is not fringe but mainstream and not only far left and far right. Just not outright stated by some of the adherents of this since they might still want women to have equal influence or don't mind even women being overepresented in colleges.
It is still mainstream to think that women should be especially protected and are easier to exploit, can more easily go along with what is harmful for them, are more passive, defer decisions to others, and so on.
The elephant in the room is the association in the minds of many of prostitution with sex slavery. This is a perspective that people on the left, right and center share to a degree. With sex tourism an angle might be that some prostitution practices in third world might include coercion or underaged victims.
There are other reasons people have to dislike prostitution, but that is the biggest one.
Those include seeing it as a degrading practice for the people who engage it. For those of more conservative viewpoint, including centrists, seeing prostitution as having a negative influence on society which would be better off if people are having sex within their monogamous relationships and marriage.
People that buy stocks, or coins, are motivated by psychological factors, or false conclusions and aren't necessarily buying based on accurate understanding of their value. Like the expectation that X will keep going up and fear of missing out. The market has always throughout history even as far as hundreds of years ago included speculation and bubbles in it. At any given point market gets some prices wrong. But on the long term the market is wiser. Unless the bubble will go on infinitely, which it won't, stocks and coins which have a grossly inflated value over their fundamentals will have their price go down. People have made plenty of money in bubbles while they have also lost plenty of money after it came crushing down.
If someone wants to get rich by engaging in speculation with DJT stock, or coins, it might even work for a time. But it is still speculation, and it is still the reasonable expectation that the price will crush down eventually. Who knows, like the Hawk Tua girl, with the coin it might even happen soon enough that you won't make money. Or it being DJT has more staying power and those who speculate might become rich if they leave after a point.
It is still speculation though and if anyone wants to do that then speculate away. Just accept the risks.
Moreover, this is why you should never bet against Trump the person. Like DJT stock, $Trump has defied the typical 'pump and dump' trajectory seen in other meme coins, like Hawk Tuah's coin, which imploded to zero right from the gate. But $Trump went up 1000x steadily after it began trading--the opposite trajectory. Trump, like Elon, is truly the master of defying what is possible, or doing the impossible. The usual rules do not apply to them. Throw out your preconceived notions. No pump and dump when it comes to $Trump--the gains hold.
Rules don't apply is just wishful thinking. It is possible that with Trump there might be a bigger speculation window. Plenty of bubbles have happened for years at times.
What you are saying about the market being wise based on current prices and rules not applying is really the philosophy of the greedy investor in a bubble and this perspective has always been proven to be wrong. This doesn't mean that someone who speculates with this coin will not make money for a time. It just means that what we know about markets tell us that the price will go down at some point. Predicting exactly when that will happen is pretty tough.
To the extend prices are mostly based on psychology, of course that can and will change. For various factors like the end of Trump's presidency or him actually dying. Or who knows, like with hawk tua coin, people might think to sell it because of these factors and the decline happens during Trump's presidency. Or maybe it happens sooner. Who even knows.
I don't buy into that standard but I do think there is a cult. It is just a general problem than only one that relates to Trump that applies to many politicians, or even broader political factions or groups.
Making it all about Trump makes it seem that politics is separated between the bad orange man and superior other elites, or Trump cultists and then people who care about expertise when actually politics and political discourse is full of fanatics, actual shills who actually get paid to promote certain agendas, and shit politicians. Politicians doing what people who pay for them want over what is good for their country is actually a worse form of corruption than this which it self is a bad thing.
When Trump's problem's are not unique that much and he exemplifies much of what is bad about politics as usual and the establishment right. Even if he has some areas that he is better and others like this which he might be worse than a Romney figure. This is to say, Trump is not the worst thing ever nor the savior.
I don't like the impersonal process-oriented bureaucracy, the expert elite, the oligarchy behind democracy, whatever you call it. They are hypocritical, corrupt, dysfunctional, whatever else. But they're not infinitely that. Society still more or less works. If
Acting as if this means that society no longer works and is worse than what other oligarchs do, well, you haven't really justified this.
Whether it is supporting BLM, their fanatical enormous nation destroying racism, their gigantic incompetence on issues relating to their generally culturally far left viewpoint and even outside of just that as it happened with California fires, mass migration, totalitarianism and making dissent to their false narratives (enabling further predation) a crime or censorship, promoting false views such as lab leak = conspiracy theory (which I believe you have also done and been highly critical of dissenters), oppressing opposition, enormous corruption, the take over of influence by far left NGOs, intelligence services, Jewish lobby which of course results in enormous corruption and redirection of resources and two tier society, and a lot other stuff. Neither California, nor Biden regime, not the neocon/liberal elites are representative of a less corrupt, more competent way to govern.
It isn't as if Trump is actually sufficiently good on any of these, but the "expert elite" do not exist. Corruption, stealing money, insane ideology. Any experts are not representative of elites and it devalues the concept of expertise to associate it with them.
Actually I don't see how this approach to praise the alternative as elite experts and take it as a given that this proves Trump is the epitome of corruption is any less cultist than the kind of Trump supporter who always supports Trump even if as he betrays the principles that would make him more enticing figure than establishment as usual. Trump is converging quite a lot with the neocon establishment in fact even if his domestic policy isn't going to be as bad as Kamala's.
Anyway, this is pretty scummy from Trump to do since the coin is eventually going to go down and is pure speculation at best, and the guy deserves a backlash for this.But your framing is making it to the benefit of something even worse. Is Biden's history of corruption and enrichment better? Not really. Is promoting crypto speculation and a coin of his own the kind of thing that is such a morally depraved act that puts the corrupt establishment as automatically superior as you present it? No, because even with Trump and certainly even with the corrupt establishment, there are worse things than this.
The cult that is in favor of the dominant faction of elites, ideologues that marched on institutions (which includes donors who by buying politicians get their agenda through) is not a superior alternative to Trump's cult. Actually there seems to be some crossover, I don't buy into the myth of Trump phenomenon being at least today completely separate. It would be better to reject both cults and to hold politicians accountable. Rejecting the myth of their good nature, expertise, and automatically correct instincts.
In any war both sides use plenty of similar tools against each other because they work. You don't see a war when one side is capable but decides to not use bullets, missiles, tanks, artillery, air force.
Promoting sympathy for X by portraying them as a minority group under threat is a tool that seems like it would work. X is treated with less sympathy because of rhetoric promoting sympathy for Z as a minority under threat and X as the threat. There isn't any logic to why this won't work if you potray different groups with sympathy and others as threatening them.
Throughout history different tribes promoted narratives that were pro their tribe and antagonistic to other tribes, which worked better than if they did nothing.
One can say that going too far with tribalism might lead to backlash, or can be detrimental in how other tribes are treated. But not going far enough is guaranteed to be detrimental and never lead to any dismantling or weakening of ideology against the group that is adviced not to use the master's tools. So it is a bad advice for the side that has been under siege to avoid using any of the tools of their more tribalist opposition. From a general ethical viewpoint, what in excess is immoral and in too little quantity is bad, in the right amount can be the right thing to do. Beyond just effectiveness.
Slavery itself was ended through force and so it was ended by the tool that maintained it. Rhetoric advocating for and against slavery was another rhetoric used by both sides. Both sides even used the bible. Supporters of slavery might have thought of their own political influence and opponents might have thought of their declining political influence and rise of influence of slave states. Economic interests that relate to slavery and then to those whose under industrial revolution and their different societal organization they didn't benefit with slavery as much and might saw such areas as antagonistic, might had been a factor. Both enslaved who opposed slavery and slave owners where thinking of their interests in opposing each other.
This idea that X group unlike Z group should not pursue their own interests and promote rhetoric framing things in defense of themselves because in doing so they will lose, is not only false but very counter intuitively false.
Gaiman was accused of rape so it certainly didn't work on the long term. And she did eventually file police report, and find other victims or "victims" for those maximally skeptical.
I am critical of extensive progressive consent demands as bad for general society but there is probably a use for them when people are engaging in what seems like rapey BSDM behavior and not engaging in normal sex with their girlfriend/wife. Both to avoid raping the women and to avoid being accused of rape when they thought it was consensual. So there is some room for negotiation. Which is a superior consideration than the fact that this might not be as attractive to some.
Promiscuous, celeb worship culture, BSDM leads to abuse, people are more likely to do so towards those who aren't their wife, etc, etc.
But people part of such subcultures which have more abuse that differs from the morally superior more conservative society that follows superior norms than them should not then try to push BSDM/polyamory norms to the rest of society. Some element of male sexual imitative, "aggression" is part of sexual attraction to a point since men are to initiate sex, kiss, etc so yeah we shouldn't throw the baby with the bathwater and be careful to have reasonable lines and standards and so I don't want to legitimize "I had sex willingly and went along with the man taking the initiative but wasn't that into it, or after a while think I regret it = rape". We have a relationship deficit. We ought to be careful not to promote shitty norms that discourage relationships and sex within relationships leading to marriage. Obviously men have to take the initiative which also relates to signals sent by women, and women don't find it attractive if men don't take the initiative. So the norms should not be stacked against men who try to do this. But there is a line still where it becomes abusive rape/sexual assault and Gaiman seems to have crossed it repeatedly unless we are to believe it is all bullshit.
It is possible this guy was at some point with his sexually aggressive rapey behavior raping/sexually assaulting these women because "when you are rich and famous they let you do it" and went an extra mile in humiliation and aggression, and at some point she decided to no longer accept it. Which is a genuine risk of going with the full dark triad approach.
Plenty of celebs have engaged and been accused of engaging in plenty of promiscuous consensual sex, statutory rape, actual genuine rape. Even a celeb who engages in that and gets away with it might be accused of rape down the line.
Some of the stories fit into rape and or sexual assault and not just seduction. Pavlovich was also working for him as a babysitter and so there is that factor also in play.
Gaiman asked her to sit on his lap. Pavlovich stammered out a few sentences: She was gay, she’d never had sex, she had been sexually abused by a 45-year-old man when she was 15. Gaiman continued to press. “The next part is really amorphous,” Pavlovich tells me. “But I can tell you that he put his fingers straight into my ass and tried to put his penis in my ass. And I said, ‘No, no.’ Then he tried to rub his penis between my breasts, and I said ‘no’ as well. Then he asked if he could come on my face, and I said ‘no’ but he did anyway. He said, ‘Call me ‘master,’ and I’ll come.’ He said, ‘Be a good girl. You’re a good little girl.’”
In 2007, Gaiman and Stout took a trip to the Cornish countryside. On their last night there, Stout developed a UTI that had gotten so bad she couldn’t sit down. She told Gaiman they could fool around but that any penetration would be too painful to bear. “It was a big hard ‘no,’” she says. “I told him, ‘You cannot put anything in my vagina or I will die.’” Gaiman flipped her over on the bed, she says, and attempted to penetrate her with his fingers. She told him “no.” He stopped for a moment and then he penetrated her with his penis. At that point, she tells me, “I just shut down.” She lay on the bed until he was finished. (This past October, she filed a police report alleging he raped her.)
One evening, Palmer dropped Pavlovich and the child off with Gaiman and retreated back to her own place. Pavlovich was in the kitchen, tidying up, when he approached her from behind and pulled her to the sofa. “It all happened again so quickly,” Pavlovich says. Gaiman pushed down her pants and began to beat her with his belt. He then attempted to initiate anal sex without lubrication. “I screamed ‘no,’” Pavlovich says. Had Gaiman and Pavlovich been engaging in BDSM, this could conceivably have been part of a rape scene, a scenario sometimes described as consensual nonconsent. But that would have required careful negotiation in advance, which she says they had not done. After she said “no,” Gaiman backed off briefly and went into the kitchen. When he returned, he brought butter to use as lubricant. She continued to scream until Gaiman was finished. When it was over, he called her “slave” and ordered her to “clean him up.” She protested that it wasn’t hygienic. “He said, ‘Are you defying your master?’” she recalls. “I had to lick my own shit.”
I am interested in the reasons people genuinely do things and far more so the substance of what they support and not the way they will present what they are after since of course people constantly present things too favorably in a manner that distorts things. Whether they are lying to others or to themselves, the positive version of a strawman where it is a positive distortion is a bad thing and not something that should be accepted without exploring where it is wrong.
Censoring reality for the sake of political corectness is bad, but I don't object to someone explaining where a negative conclusion is too negative. And of course being overly charitable towards the left comes along with being overly uncharitable to both those harmed by the left and to those critical of the left.
I don't think OP was merely steelmaning though but was arguing in favor of a specific perspective and against a different view. But there was an entitlement to positive bias towards the left, and I don't think OP sufficiently demonstrated anti-dan's position being inaccurate and anti-dan's argument more accurately captures the reality of DEI than it being about market outcomes.
You can of course insist that the only reason your enemies do anything is that they are stupid and evil, and this may be a satisfying and self-gratifying thing to believe, but it's probably not accurate either.
But this is a strawman! You are framing my perspective too negatively and in a manner that I wouldn't present it while complaining about others supposedly doing the same.
I think some of the people who some include my "enemies" other people who I dislike what they are doing but not necessarily consider my enemies are immoral or insufficiently moral and sellouts who don't even care about what is the right and smart things to do from a broader perspective, or are blind ideologues, or some are neither but something not as bad but still bad enough from the perspective of what is the common good.
There are people who don't have the freedom to resist doing stupid things that enough people push as an agenda and are doing it to get along. Others are smart and malicious and support DEI because they think they will benefit or think it will harm a group that they ideologically or ethnically dislike. Some are not zealous ideologues but might follow a stupid and disastrous ideology
A lot of people can do evil and stupid things all the time, in all sorts of societies, sometimes even ideologically opponents of each other. The expectation of wise and ethical and correct conduct is much more presumptuous.
A very decent % of them can have stupid beliefs while in other facets not be stupid. One could call them misguided I guess and I am not after calling all people doing destructive things with the label idiots/stupid but using your terms. People acting in a self destructive irrational manner such as promoting incompetents at their own expense is an aspect of DEI.
Is the point to make it as if it is about calling people stupid, so you can dismiss the negative criticism that is about irrational ideology and promote the perspective that it is about market outcomes?
Misguided/Stupid/irrational and immoral ideologies and policies happen all the time. There are plenty of different people who support what is wrong for reasons that don't reflect positively upon them, for others to find legitimate things to criticize for lifetimes. Certainly the left is far from exempt from this. There is no legitimate basis to bias in favor of what reflects more positively but could be inaccurate, over what doesn't reflect as positively, and in this case is more accurate.
It can even be beneficial to some of the ideologues if enough influential types have rigged the system to benefit ideological conformism, even if what they support is bad in general. And while it wasn't my original language, but I defended it, yes there are people who support incompetent people who hate them to replace them for reasons of ideological blindspot, going along with zeltgeist, following a bad and irrational ideology, etc.
Have you considered that you might be biased against right wingers who are critical towards the left and are trying to frame such criticisms and negativity as irrational, illegitimate, hysterical, unfair, etc, etc?
You might not be as negative to the establishment neocon type to a degree, I guess, but I simply do not see any of intensity from you for people to steelman your right wing outgroup, but you are in fact the one who is constantly framing the anti feminist, white identitarians, HBDers, those critical of Jews, those critical of the left, etc, you name it, in very a negative light and not in the way they would like to represent their views. Yes you can always try to explain how they genuinely are that bad, and are terrible extremist evil irrational haters, but there is zero consistency here. You might even try to frame it again at how people want to get away with being uncharitable haters. But you are doing so while you are uncharitable and hating. So that would be again trying to frame people in a way that is too negative, incorrect and not how they like to present themselves. This can go ad nauseum with repetition.
It is more that you are using the "unfairness towards left" as a weapon to dismiss the other side, or in fact censor it.
Leftist cancel culture towards people being insufficiently politically correct/insufficiently conformist and positive over left wing visions which has in fact also had a more violent form in history, is actually a very serious deal. You don't seem to care whatsoever if in your extreme zeal to protest perceived unfairness toward the left you are unfair towards the people who you frame as these terrible irrational people, in my view very uncharitably and with distortions.
There are consequences of doing this both in censorship and in booing correct speech that leftists find offensive because it is politically incorrect *. Both in mistreating the naysayers and in not allowing bad ideologies, and bad harmful factions that comprise of people, to be treated accurately, as bad as they really are. And therefore to be allowed to continue to do harm. The rape gangs continuing in Britain after far righters sounded the alarm but they were dismissed, in addition of course to the victims who were also dismissed with some of the stories being especially horrific, is one example of the consequences of zealous pro left and associated groups political correctness which treats negative reality towards its in-groups as too unbelievable and offensive to be taken seriously.
- Hell, there are even negative consequences of being overly dismissive and uncharitable towards both the argument and the people who are 80% correct in a negative criticism towards the left but have some element of exaggeration. Rather than trying to disentangle only the areas where they might be 20% wrong while accepting where they are 80% correct.
Belisarius
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8d ago
I am confident that me demonstrating in substance the core of the issue, and you claiming bias and subsequently declaring victory, is a divergence that I am happy to leave things at. I am content for both of us to declare victory with this differing approach.
The House in the American congress passes International Criminal Court sanctions bill in response to Netanyahu warrant, to sanction International Criminal Court. So we see a clear desire to defy decisions made based on a legal understanding. Same appies to UN resolutions against Israel.
Even when the often zionist, neocon elite have been using the very authority of opposition to war crimes, criminal conduct to justify warmongering.
Your claim that you possess as superior textual understanding of international law that justifies your maximalist partisan perspective and its huge double standards is not convincing and is simply false.
By contrast, ignoring the text of what is or is not provided for in international law as convenient (or inconvenient) to advance your desires is the paradigm that leads to systemic abuse of the international law by powers that have more power to shape when and what sort of selective interpretations are advanced more often.
But you are one of those who argue in favor of ignoring international law, by claiming that it doesn't constrain USA because of American sovereignty and the desire of Americans to not be constrained by it. Essentially there isn't any constrain of international law when it comes to American actions. Therefore this is a fallacious arguement because you are not interested in powers abusing international law. Although from your perspective international law means that USA and Israel are allowed to do as it pleases
So it is clear that your attempt to present your position helping us reach a point that great powers will not systematically abusing the law, is false. At best, you could claim you support what you call an international law that allows American and Israeli warcrimes.
My encouragement for the audience is to consider whether Belisarius is making a legal argument on the nature and nuances of laws, or an emotional appeal more motivated by their geopolitical hostilities.
This is projection.
If you were dealing with someone who pretended the Russians never didn't do nothing wrong there might be more equivalency in partisanship. I am actually interested in how the rule of international law can work better. And it isn't by excusing GAE and Israel actions and using the concept as a weapon against other countries.
It isn't geopolitical hostility that the USA and Israel have committed warcrimes but a part of reality.
It is geopolitical partisanship from your behalf that you aren't willing to acknowledge it and are even attacking those who do with false accusations of bad motives, because the facts are overwhelmingly against any claim that such actions haven't happened. Which is why you are trying to advance an argument that somehow it doesn't count.
I am even willing to acknowledge that it isn't only American power that provides limitations to the rule of international law. Of course a UN security council member and a nuclear power like Russia can get away with plenty. Even weaker powers can get away with international law violations through the willingness of greater powers to give them permission to act, based on their geopolitical interests.
This issue relates to the substance of the law in practice. I am sure Pablo Escobar's lawyer could be willing to come up with all sorts of excuses for why Pablo Escobar being allowed to have a stay in a prison designed by Pablo Escobar's specifications was fully legitimate and acceptable, because the Colombian authorities accepted it. I am rather completely disagreeing with your perspective that any rule of law exists where the substance of what ought to be prohibited, isn't followed. Which granted isn't your perspective alone, but central to the corruption of the rule of law in various societies by those who benefit in getting away with what the law is expected to prohibit, and in fact prohibits textually as well. This is the way to get away with corrupting a system, or to leave it corrupt.
There isn't any validity to the view that the opposition to the corruption of the law is irrationally emotional. There are irrationally emotional people, at least from the perspective of the common good, which is those who are emotionally invested in defending groups and organizations that corrupt a system. Escobar who I mentioned had his fanboys. In fact, criminality inspires rational opposition and strong feelings of anger in combination that are a superior response to passivity and giving a damn for what actually matters is how you avoid having your society corrupted by the Pablo Escobars of the world.
Same applies to the rule of International Law which actually exists in a very limited capacity, although I guess it could had been even more limited.
And the actions of the American congress against the international criminal court are part of what makes it limited. Granted, the nature of nation state sovereignty and the potential of political manipulation in the UN by various countries, or ideologues, makes things more complicated than a perspective that to get rule of international law we need to have states as fully subordinate of bodies like the UN.
But that doesn't change the fact that the USA and Israel are breaking all sorts of both textual rules on the books but also the rules as described by the people talking about war crimes, genocides, aggressive war and there is even precedent with trials towards leaders including in Serbia. These actions cannot just be washed away by claims of bias.
Trying to consistently apply at least some of the standards that the USA claims to care about in other countries and not threatening the international criminal court over its decisions towards Israel's warcrimes would be a move towards greater international justice and greater rule of international law. Of course, there is zero chance that the current establishment is going to do this.
You are operating under the assumption that a positive perspective towards the left and DEI is the ethical way to go and accurate.
You haven't established that anti-dan perspective is uncharitable and unfairly describes the DEI policies. You are just asserting that it is booing his outgroup. Ironically, you are attacking as an outgroup people who have a more negative view of DEI and the left. That kind of thing isn't harmless. Far left extremists who were too defensive about the failures of their ideological perspective have probably been among the most destructive forces of the 20th century, including towards their hated right wing outgroup. In general right wing lack of conformity to leftist ideological dogma and their more negative perspective is directly related to plenty of hatred towards the right by leftists who feel entitled to conformism to their ideology and falsely believe it is somehow bad to have a more negative perspective of it.
Underestimating the DEI problem and to the extend it is about incompetent people getting a benefit at expense of those they dislike not only can lead to unnecessary excessive hostility but can lead to underestimating a genuine problem.
Since people who are incompetent and dislike those they replace are benefiting by DEI and that is a central part of it, I don't see any valid reason to dismiss this as inaccurate.
Understating genuine problems and far left extremism and even the racist hatred that has been part of such movements must be taken more seriously because it a much more central problem to the reaction to left wing extremism than people being too unfair towards it. It how the slippery slope happens, through insufficient backlash, which has been what has been observed rather than too much right wing backlash.
Also backlash that leads to reversal of bad policies and agendas would be good thing. I see no reason to be invested in defending the honor of DEI. If people have a more negative view of failed policies, that is a good thing in fact.
Those programs were uneconomical but it wasn't just a function of goverment disposition. Nor is it really easy to separate the goverment from the NGO networks, rich donors, intelligence agencies, and ideologues who marched in institutions and support this ideology not only through their influence in business but as journalists, academics, lawyers, and yes goverment officials and of course donors of political parties. And of course for some of the people in a system that rewards these ideologues might be doing it also to get higher positions.
There is something to the logic of extreme disloyal plutocrats that might prefer, sometimes in a short sided manner even from a $ point of view when one considers human capital and also willingness of migrants to redistribute resources and positions at expense of productive workers and vote badly, that labor pool is as big as possible. With costs such as welfare costs given to society, but even that wouldn't necessarily lead to DEI, except as a compromise to the kind of attitute the migrants and their supporters have. Still, I don't think that is the primary factor but more so the ideology of hostility towards the group subject to DEI due to a combo of motte and bailey radical egalitarianism and tribalism for the identities benefiting (including by people who don't belong in those groups) and anti-white racism.
Even in regards to economic interests. Rich people and corporations have a minimum duty to their nation to not commit treason and act at its expense, so any desire to expand the labor pool cannot simply be accepted as legitimate and they ought to be reined in and even subject to criminal prosecutions if their vision of economic success it at the expense of their country. In a better functioning system, Facebook and Zuckerberg shouldn't be allowed to lobby for mass migration for example.
You are arguing that USA is innocent by default of its warmongering because it chooses to not accept the sovereignty of international courts. But if sovereignty is at the core of international law, then one nation's sovereignty to violate the sovereignty of other nations causes an obvious problem. This idea stretches to absurdity. If the USA decided to nuke the rest of the world tomorrow would that be in line with international rule of law as well?
Meanwhile, Bush signed a bill into law that gives the American president power to invade Netherlands if any American is found guilty of warcrimes, which raises the question if we are dealing with international law about sovereignity in general of USA using its power to get away with warcrimes. And American warmongering has often been done under the pretense that countries that consider themselves sovereign have somehow have behaved in an aggressive manner towards other countries or their leaders are tyrannical.
You seem to try to impose your own corrupt understanding on others. It isn't my idea but there is an objective criteria into which warcrimes, genocide, causing civil wars, can be defined and understood. Just like a drug lord who bought the goverment is still guilty of murder, bribery, engaging in the drug trade, principles of guilt are above American or any other nation's sovereignty, or even any decisions made by any international body. Either the USA or anyone is guilty of such actions or not. The point of the law is obviously to execute in practice without corruption such principles and find those who behave in a criminal manner, to be in fact in breach and then to be held accountable.
Obviously a drug lord, or his lawyer would like to argue that his conduct doesn't count as criminal. But it does count, whatever postmodernist irrational tricks, they would want to promote.
Else you don't have international rule of law. And obviously the very concept has always been limited by facts like the power of the biggest states, their veto in UN security council, etc. It always necessitates a certain restraint and reciprocal accountability. This means that today actually the rule of international law and international justice is in fact quite limited in practice. It doesn't mean that such limitations are the rule of international law. We just have a very limited rule of law.
Just like Mexico which has limited sovereignty and corrupted by drug lords, has a more limited application of the law against murder than other countries. In practice Mexico is more lawless and has less justice. It is against any interest of justice caring people to accept redefining it. We should not treat the current version of Mexico as representing a new understanding of law and justice. Nor should we treat the drug dealers who get away with it as behaving in a legitimate manner.
You are trying to stretch the semantics to introduce the opposite meaning into it when the point of international rule of law, especially when Globalist American empire warmongers always use it to justify aggressive action. And their argument always relates to states engaging in such criminal actions against other countries or claimed tyranny in their own borders.
The goal of the perspective you are promoting is for criminal actions to be found and exaggerated when it comes to other countries so there are excuses to justify aggressive action against other countries, but then somehow it doesn't count when it comes to the USA and Israel. This duality and the usefulness in one sided application, is why the concept is not disregarded entirely over a pure might is right perspective.
The one who is inconsistent here is you. The only consistent part about your agenda is that you are fully in favor of American and Israeli aggressive actions, including ones that utilize a narrative of violations of international law, or justice.
It is actually an Orwellian perspective that assaults the very concept of international law, and international justice that the rule of international law is about the sovereignty of USA and Israel to commit war crimes, genocide, and violate others sovereignty.
When it comes to maximalist partisanship for the American and Israeli establishments, it isn't a valid perspective that is going to be persuasive to those who aren't already partisan in the same manner. Even if you try to promote this maximalist partisanship for Globalist America Empire and Israel in a more indirect manner. It is still transparent enough.
Until such time that the US and the Israelis are members of the ICC, there are no internal law obligations on them to obey the ICC.
What you are looking is for excuses. At the end of the day one can win, claim might is right, and argue they have no obligations.
International rule of law is not about finding loopholes to justify your criminal conduct while promoting maximal propaganda about others criminal conduct. Which will be used not only to oppose actual criminal conduct but also to justify aggressive action.
The powerful can at times make it so the law and principles don't apply to them. And even try to make it officially. International rule of law requires to accept the authority and restrain ones behavior in line with international courts of justice.
It's like a mafia not recognising the authority of the court and having enough influence with bribed cops to get away with it. Or Drug lords in a narco state.
Of course, you can't claim to not recognize a court and therefore warcrimes and invasions are compatible with international rule of law. If you choose to be exempt the fact is that this illustrates your hostility to international rules of law and human rights.
Now of course international bodies can promote completely asinine agendas including great replacement, or agreements where your country is screwed over while India and China can develop relating to climate change international agreements. Human rights can be stretched to the absurd. So, I don't object to countries objecting to exploitative more pathologically altruist type of arrangements promoted by international organizations and even foreign countries, foreign nationalists or their own oikophobes. But that isn't the case against the USA and Israel militarism and human rights violations. Of course one should distinguish between BS that an ideologue might pretend are human rights, and more well understood genuine human rights. Like not invading countries, not creating civil wars, avoiding war crimes, etc, etc.
The point is to adhere to principles consistently. The USA and Israel definitely do not do that. Nor do its elite, opinion makers and those pushing such talking points adhere principles consistently.
I don't consider the USA to be a supporter of a rules based order. It isn't corner cases.
Sure, there might be circumstances where USA might oppose aggressive action of other powers that USA might be opposing something evil. But even in these circumstances the USA might be putting oil in fire and want a proxy war, or it be more complicated than USA stopping aggression.
Additionally to the extend USA can be an ideological power it is about an ideology that difers from rule based order like Communists were for communist ideology and not about avoiding subversion, invasions,totalitarianism.
In my view to have an international rules based order both the USA and others in general need to value international law over invasions for example, but some level of realism is also helpful. Because toppling other countries for the sake of hegemony and creating chaos or putting puppets in charge, obviously is both against international rules based order and the end point of hubris and inability to compromise with the existence, rights and interests.
The coexistence of some level of realism with valuing for their own right opposition to countries invading their neighbors. Trying to colonize other countries, is how you can get something closer to both. So I agree that a pure cynical our interests only, isn't sensible.
I agree that USA shouldn't be a pathologically altruist power however. In agreements for global warming there are plans for developed countries to pay for development of India, China. Or to stiffle their own future.
Self destruction is not the path for any sane way to behave and in our times it is a fashionable version of supposed "justice".
There are issues that I find Chinese behavior concerning like the mass use of fishing vessels as far as Argentina, and depleting fishing supplies.
What would make me have a more positive view is a USA that isn't the trouble maker or tries to dismember China but is against the Chinese and others starting trouble. Basically for a global American influence that helps preserve nations free, self determinant, and dissuades war and civil conflict. Instead of often doing the opposite. Do I think this is going to happen? No.
I guess on some level you can have more or less respect for a genuine International rules based order, which is different than people just using it as a phrase but actually doing the opposite. I do think it is possible to push to a degree things in one or another direction but utopia is impossible. Generally I like to argue towards what I consider good even if it is unlikely to bring significant good change.
Maybe there has been some small elements of that in the so called pax americana that gave some people false hope, or some influence of American media and propaganda. At the end of the day much as I wish it was different, the USA isn't a benevolent power. And the narrative that tries to promote this version and uses ww2 is just a distorted version of history.
Also relevant that the realist school has a point that much of warmongering isn't of the benefit of the Americans as a people.
The answer to the second question seems to be yes to me, because a world where "Should Ukraine be invaded and genocided?" is a local matter between Ukraine and whoever has the power to invade them is a world where medium-sized countries like Canada, Poland and Vietnam need nuclear deterrents, a world where Canada needs a nuclear deterrent is a world where they build one, and a world with more nukes is a world where one is more likely to be let off in error.
I agree with the general sentiment but I don't interpret the Ukraine conflict as one of only Russian aggression but see Ukraine as also the outpost of American aggression against Russia. And also see the use of USA of countries like Ukraine, as also not necessarily to the benefit of said countries who become the battlefield for proxy war. I also don't buy into this idea of only Russian self defense. The Russians created their own breakaway in Georgia, in Moldova with Transnitria.
Not only with its own conflicts directly involved, but the USA has allowed Turkey, Israel and Azerbaijan (which to an extend is antagonistic to Iran), to expand territories and commit aggressive behavior.
Maybe zero American influence would lead to other powers undermining more the international rules based order but the typical policies of the American foreign policy establishment/deep state are themselves undermining any genuine International Rules Based Order that isn't just a slogan. Being maximally uncooperative and desiring of world hegemony it self leads to conflict. But sure being maximally tolerant of Chinese/Russian and others aggression against other countries will also lead to wars. So I do think there would be a positive value in a USA willing to dissuade that without engaging it self in those behavior or encouraging/allowing others to do so.
There is also the ideological angle of the kind of influence that are the result of color revolutions such as in Georgia, and the influence of CIA and NGOs, even of someone like George Soros and other types. Which I am 100% against the ideology imposed on countries by these people. And this it self is aggression that undermines any genuine international rules based order. The policies that come along of mass migration, and oppressing the native majority and treating them as illegitimate, and of course oppressing and excluding from influence patriots who oppose this, fits historically with the policy that tyrannical empires did throughout history to import foreigners and have them rule over a subject people.
The international rule of law and American, Israeli, warmongering, and hegemony is something quite different.
You cannot stretch the first to encompass the later. Toppling countries for the sake of dominating them or increasing your or Israel hegemony counts obviously as a violation of international rule of law. But also the USA gave the go ahead to Turkey and Israel to commit aggressive war in Syria and expand their territory.
The USA does not obey the international court of justice on its declaration of Israel's genocide and Netanyahou arrest warrant. It threatened it in regards to the Iraq war.
So it is disingenuous for your neocon take to be presented as a defense of international rule of law. The neocons are against the international rule of law but for using it as an excuse.
Moreover, obviously countless wars of aggression are started by painting the other side as aggressors, wannabee imperialists, oppressors of minorities, etc, etc. The rhetoric about everyone being Hitler is used to do just that.
The destruction of Syria, Libya, Iraq, the countless color revolutions, even the Ukraine episode that involved the shelling of Russian areas, is not. Color revolutions and subversion of countries through your intelligence services, is also a form of aggression, imperialism. Since you create puppets and expand your circles of influence and hegemony.
I actually wouldn't mind if the USA was a dissuading power against China and Russia from screwing over other countries. But the American conduct isn't to protect the weak and not intervene in other countries except to protect.
I actually like the idea of international rule of law in combination with some dose of realism which combines a general idea of such law and to be used by powers against others. So the norm is strong and powers have the ability to use it to dissuade each other. Then an understanding of red lines and trying to find a modus vivendi and compromise to the level that aggressive war is avoided.
For example, Ukraine should not have made moves against Russian language and been ruled in 2010s in a manner that was inclusive of Russian speakers. Just one example. Another reason to encourage compromise by various powers is to avoid escalation.
USA defying international rule of law while pretending otherwise, and allowing other countries to do as well, will lead to antagonistic countries to the USA that are powerful to do so likewise.
The general narrative about the good Israel and the good USA and bad never ending Hitlers and antisemites, is a narrative that tries to excuse enormous war crimes, aggressive conduct, and to ensure that in an orwelian manner International law is doubly violated. Both violated in practice, but while claiming to be fulfilled which is another violation.
WW2 = good wasn't about the Holocaust at the time - we didn't know about the Holocaust at the time the key wartime propaganda was being made (Casablanca is still a great movie, but at a technical level so was Triumph of the Will). It was about Hitler being a madman bent on world domination through aggressive war.
Hitler wanted imperialist expansion but wasn't a madman who was bent on world domination and the USA and USSR also were motivated by imperialist expansion. Hitler was also motivated by crushing Bolshevism and Jewish influence to communism and the enormous threat of the soviet army. If you removed the German army from the picture in the 1930s, you would get Europe conquered by the soviets. Especially if there is no American intervention against the Soviets. The USA during WW2 also wasn't just motivated by geopolitical interests but also by the fact that its goverment was infiltrated by plenty of communist agents.
Which doesn't mean that Hitler wasn't an imperialist and even willing to do plenty of attrocities and treat the conquered peoples cruelly. The USA on the long term has shown an ideology that is very hostile to the survival of european peoples but on the short term its hegemony was of a less cruel nature. But you presented a caricature. You can present Hitler in a negative way without exaggeration.
Stalin too was an imperialist but not ONLY motivated by that, but also by a fear of the German army.
Both Hitler and Stalin made war in Europe for dominance over it inevitable. I would consider Stalin along with Hitler the two leaders most responsible for widespread destructive war in Europe during ww2. They are also blamewothy for cruel conduct. Howver much of the rhetoric here washes way too much American attrocities including complicity with soviet conduct. Anyway both Stalin and Hitler were definitely motivated not just by imperialist designs but by reasonable fear of each other power.
Stalin attacked various countries too before the invasion of the Soviet Union and planned his own invasion. That Hitler attacked the Soviet Union first does not mean that the Soviet Union isn't also significantly to blame for World War 2. The USA then also wanted world war 2, and was pretty firmly on the soviet side. But one can understand even such figures without making them complete caricatures.
Also, in regards the whole Jews and communist question. The Jews were very overepresented among political comisars and of course American communists and among some of the worst mass murderers of modernity have been Jewish communists who were active in the first half of 20th century. East Europeans who turned against Soviet Union during WW2 including some who fought along with Germans had experienced a genuine murderous oppression. Jews in the USSR had played a disproportionate role in oppressing them and in atrocities. Germans commited of course plenty of their own attrocities against east europeans and their has been an east european versus German violence too at end of ww2.
There has even been a mutual genocide between Polish and Ukrainians, which I also add here to provide some more nuance.
This is to say that WW2 does not fit into the narrative of the avenging oppressed Jew who is only oppressed and justifiably must do violence against his insane conspiracy theorist amalek evil ethnic group enemies that must be destroyed. But I wouldn't consider all ethnic groups as equally bad behaving neither. I see the Germans as more blameworthy during ww2 when they were on top and consider the morality that they adopted under Nazi Germany to be of a more ultranationalist character. I consider the Jews a group very willing to abuse their power to harm others when they are on top, and to have retained an extreme nationalist mentality, and not only something that came and passed. Although during the theater of WW2 were of course targeted for violence by the Nazis, were therefore more mistreated during this historical episode. Although they had their own share even during ww2 of violence as political comisars or as influence through their influence in the USA. And obviously prior and of course strongly pushing the ethnic destruction and replacement and minoritarization of european countries, and not just Germany after ww2. Including attacking the very legitimacy of european ethnic identities and their survival.
But WW2 is so focused because it provides helpful cherry picking, in combination of course with exaggerated un nuanced one sided narratives even regarding WW2. Since of course it is morally absurd to forget the enormous mass murders that happened prior to WW2 and the strong participation of Jewish figures as some of the biggest protagonists. Especially as part of Communist movement.
East Europeans I see as also not people who have unbloody hands (including as part of USSR, it doesn't make sense to pin all of its crimes on Jews or on Stalin as only central figure and everyone else as automatons, or on supposedly ethnic-less amorphous communists, especially since some of the Soviet conduct had an ethnic revenge angle towards the Germans. But the Soviet union also targeted various ethnic groups not just Germans, and it targeted Germans even before 1939 too) but I wouldn't treat them as equally cruel and sadistic as German mentality under Nazis or Jewish mentality. And they have been targeted more than they targeted. And less (but not entirely, it would one sided and caricature to say this is 100%) the ones who started at least in regards to certain scale of atrocities. So I sympathize more with them, even though to an extend it doesn't make sense to put different non Jewish east Europeans in the same category.
And the fact that I am willing to acknowledge the more predatory nature of others is not an endorsement of any atrocity. While some of the behavior and violence have been of a more imperialist, predatory form. Or particularly disproportionate, it would be erroneous understanding of WW2 to forego the elements of violence that follows previous violence (that sometimes follows previous violence). But also plenty of violence that isn't about any revenge but targeting a weaker group.
Since avoiding an end point where different ethnic groups trying to kill each other is one of the lessons to get from WW2 and you don't learn this lesson through the caricatured picture of ww2. Even the biased wikipedia has some examples of Soviet genocides after ww2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes.
And so, it isn't as clear case of good triumphing in WW2, now is it?
Some interesting blog posts in regards to some of the issues I mentioned:
https://jottopohl.substack.com/p/title
https://jottopohl.substack.com/p/a-short-statistical-view-of-jews
I will repeat once again that remove Wehrmacht and the bigger and more mobilized soviet army that was going to defeat the Germans if the Germans didn't attack first while it was within mobilization, was going to conquer whole of Europe (unless a nuclear USA was to stop them). And of course the Soviets stopped the Germans not only from conquering the Soviet Union but remaining in a much stronger position in other parts of Europe. This undermines the pro soviet narrative although only to a degree. Still you shouldn't thank people who are against your enemy who are also your enemy and oppressor. It is true that without soviet blood and army the Germans control Europe, unless the USA starts throwing nukes. But I wouldn't thank neither, and even the American "help" although helped against an immediate great oppressive evil, has come with an enormous price for Europe on the long term. And during WW2 although not as much as Germany or Soviet Union, the USA did have some of its own atrocities. (Morthenthau plan, its firebombings and more). Including in collaboration with the soviet union, deporting people who moved from the soviet union to the west, back to the Soviet Union to be mass murdered. This atrocity involved more than a million people IIRC.
Never in its history has the USA been on the level of morally good that fits the picture you are presenting here, including during WW2, of course the cold war, and in the 21st century it has probably been the power that caused most life loss both through war, sanctions, color revolutions, creating power vacuums, supporting Jihadist rebels, and giving the go ahead to other badly motivated powers (not sure how to apportion American responsibility for harm done by allies in conduct that it supports and collaborates and even supplies). Learning about things like Yinon plan and Israel's plan to increase hegemony through destabilization of neighboring Arab countries, provides better understanding of middle east policy than convenient false narrative about never ending Hitlers justifying such disastrous conduct.
This brings in mind a certain parable. There is a bad Samaritan who claims to be a good Samaritan who likes to go and find people who have been in motorcycle accidents and remove their helmet, in an attempt to help them, he always says. However this doesn't work and the people die. And he keeps doing it. At some point, one should question his great intentions even if he constantly claims to be a good Samaritan and that only bad people would ever insinuate otherwise.
If the people having such plans were doing so with the best intentions as if any foreign policy establishment has a goal to save the world from evil, then they will be pretty stupid to catastrophically bring immoral ends time and time again. They aren't that stupid but are willing to promote a fake moralistic narrative.
It would be preferable if the USA was to behave more in line with the international rule of law. Trump's bullying of Denmark, would of course also deviate from that.
Belisarius
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11d ago
Good books are more engrossing, detailed and better written than good tv shows. They are also more time consuming and less relaxing experience.
For example, I don't consider the consumption of books, international travel, and live artistic performances any more or less superior than the consumption of internet blogs, local outings and tv shows, yet it's the first class of activities that are considered higher status because they better signal intelligence, disposable income and free time.
I actually would consider certain blogs to be superior to books both as a way to transmit your ideas and to read them. Books can still be better in terms of being more detailed on the issue but the benefit of succinctness and immediacy can't be understated. That and in terms of gate keeping gives blogs an additional value since you are going to find blogs that I would consider more intellectually honest as a higher % of blogs than books as a proportion of books. That and you can communicate with people while if you start talking to your book, usually nobody replies back
ISIS wins in Syria and that inspires Jihadists in the west. Just like in Syria unlike under Assad, secular education that respected Christians is replaced by Islamic education, likeminded people become more brazen in the west as well.
There is a connection with helping destroy Christian people in middle east and helping inspire the same fanatics to harm Christian people outside the middle east.
There is also a connection between inviting these kind of people in your country as legal migrants. This terrorist was even an educated person IIIRC.
These terrorist attacks have nothing to do with middle eastern conflicts, although I know leftists are desperate to draw connections between the two in order to say Americans deserve it somehow
You are treating the victims of terrorist attacks who certainly don't deserve it and the immoral American foreign policy establishment who isn't the one dying, as being on the same boat here. If the foreign policy establishment is to blame the American victims are also their victims. This establishment could deserve to be blamed while the victims definetly don't "deserve it"
Regarding blame.
Of course there is a relation between populace in general and governance to a degree but to be fair it isn't as if the average American has that effective control over whether America funds jihadists or not. The American establishment kind of does as it wants. In certain periods the American public was willing to support regime change in Iraq, and so they aren't blameless for the consequences of regime change in Iraq but for the most part the American elites do as they please without the average American deciding about putting troops in Syria, training Jihadists, or not.
Or take the Pakistani rape scandal in Britain. The British establishment and parts of population have a responsibility there for allowing this, and their logic of "antiracism" leads to monstrous abuses. But this is different than blaming the victims. Rather the society has harmed part of its own people by allowing monstrous foreign child rapists gangs.
If anything the jihadists would be grateful to America, if they weren’t under the influence of a monomaniacal death cult
If you help a wild dog and he ends up killing people who you are responsible for, you kind of have your own responsibility. The American (foreign policy establishment) love affair with Jihadists including Osama Bin Laden in the 1980s, in the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, and of course in the Syrian war has its consequences. If Jihadists are ungrateful immoral fanatics, then you are doing something very wrong if you support them. To allow them to ruin other countries because you are in favor of them weakening those countries it is pretty awful on its own right too. But blowback is another consequence of this.
Is it good to import the Asian work model?
USA isn't doing bad productivity wise in comparison with Asian countries. The hyper competitive nature of Korean especially society might be related to their really low fertility rate.
But I don't think that what Vivek is advocating is the Asian work model. They are looking to justify mass migration by claiming that workers are higher quality and willing to work for worse conditions and pay. The later is true, sometimes subsidized with welfare.
It isn't good for American workers if the norms change in that direction.
Since the claim is more about justifying 1. that is unavoidable. The massive economic elephant in the room in regards to migration is the discrimination against white Americans that was already a problem and would increase with more Indians migrants who have this narrative of their superiority, as a means of justification. This discrimination is part of the current situation, and caused in part by the influence of not only the migrants themselves who discriminate such as Indians who are especially nepotistic, but also of many who have this pro migration philosophy that is strongly associated with progressive stack type discrimination. See here as an example: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-equal-opportunity-corporate-diversity/
In relevance with 1: this blog addresses it in more detail: https://arctotherium.substack.com/p/increasing-skilled-immigration-is
But I think those things, while correlated with their work culture, are also potentially separable from their work culture.
But are the Japanese actually that much more hard working than Americans? This model might represent in part some Asian migrants or some Asian communities, and also in part just exaggeration.
I am not convinced it represents the "Asian" norm. There is something to it with Japan and Korea and some practices among some Asian migrants. But even then when it comes to Japan in particular, considering that Americans are hard working, I am not sure that Japanese are more hard working.
I would say that Americans are already a hard working people who choose to balance working longer and harder over vacations in comparison with the rest of the world. Including when comparing their practices with European countries. Even if there was some economic benefit in doing so, putting the balance even more in the work category seems to not be worth it considering the trade offs in other facets of life. This model is more related with bragging and the more desperate situation of migrants. But such people are also of lower human capital and also subsidized by welfare and benefit through discrimination policies.
But a part of this is due to oligarchs wanting cheaper labor who they can more easily get rid of. They might also desire to force workers in general to adopt these standards and bring wages down.
A culture that is too hyper competitive can also lead to people wasting time to prove superiority in internal competitions. If smart people have fewer children due to that then the end result is negative. Therefore, it would be a bad idea to adopt such norms.
There is actually a potential, like some of them did in the past, for a left that isn't anti-native, to take the side of its own native labor. I am not a leftist economically, but there is a balance to this. Certainly 8 hour week and some level of worker rights is not valueless.
Historically there was slavery but there were also even children that weren't slaves working in abysmal conditions and dying in the industrial revolution. While a balance that allows productive work over laziness is good, it isn't a good idea to allow oligarchs to push for norms further in the direction of desperate workers willing to accept terrible working standards.
Are you Hlynka?
Yes a nation is based on people while being a state that is based on ideas akin to new soviet man, is something quite different. Of course nationalism is exclusive to ideastan. It is possible to combine nationalism with the dominant ethos of the nation also coming along with certain traditions and ideas and even religion. In fact it is almost always the case that particular people also have a particular culture that reflect their character and development. They might even have things in common with other peoples on religion. But whether Japan with their own unique particularities or any other group these aspect combine with being a nation. Nationalism which is the english word for ethnos, without ethnicity, doesn't make sense.
Now, it is possible to have multiethnic empires but even those have some form of arrangement that takes in consideration the ethnic interests of its people and give them some representation. Unless the model is one of foreign occupation but then again you have a dominant ethnic group and an occupied people who aren't allowed the privileges of an independent people.
So various different ideologies and dogmas can combine with nationalism and tend to do so, but you can't have a nation that is based on only ideology and not a people and still have a nation. You are likely to lose the ideology that dominated when you were a nation too.
This applies even more so if you promote as core ideology an antinationalist ideology which is new soviet man teritory and the destruction of nations of course doesn't make a nation. Nor will it even lead to an utopia without ethnic groups and ethnic conflict. We have seen how it is used to concern troll in the case of the USA, what are white Americans, while its proponents have done nothing to stop other ethnic groups from organizing as ethnic communities and in fact have even advocated in favor of various identity groups. Even with the Soviets, there were periods with minorities on top, it had its pan-slavic phase, there is some national character that asserts itself and antinationalism tends to lead to foreigners taking over. Or the marxist cultural revolution is put in the back burner and a national character reemerges.
The enlightenment had different intellectual trends. One of which was far leftist extremists. In the French revolution you had people who were for cult of reason and behaved in a proto commie manner in totalitarian brutality and such elements had continued to exist in the 19th century.
The far left tradition of the enlightenment has continued to this day. This doesn't mean that French revolutionaries would support the great replacement today but there is a continuity in that intellectual current. The entire project of enlightenment and intellectuals however included more nuanced figures that had more sophisticated models (figures like Napoleon for example) and so I wouldn't throw together all thought that is part of modernity. Such people failed to restrain the more extreme elements. Although I wouldn't blame someone like Washington for what happened quite after he was dead. This happened mainly through intellectual currents of the 20th century. Marxism and especially its cultural tradition and those who share their ideology although granted the momentum might have started in late 19th century being far more important aspect of modern USA than the vision of the American founders. The vision of Jewish migrants who promoted concepts such as the melting pot and migrated at the start of the century have also proven more influential for modern America than the vision of its founders. But other migrants from early 20th century and late 19th century might also have played some role in this direction. And in general 20th century thinkers and some late 19th thinkers of marxist tradition have proven very influential.
The modern establishment ideologues of modern liberalism/neocons in societies like USA are part of the far left tradition and even the tradition of networks of foreign extreme nationalists. I will admit that categorizing things left or right becomes a bit tricky since what is far right nationalist for ones own people can support what might be considered more left wing for a group they are hostile towards. I would say the liberal/neocon elites are in large part the same with those you call "woke degenerates" on most important questions, and are either at times somewhat hiding their power level, or are fully that and just excused, or a component of them have some limited hangout differences.
For example lets examine the neocon Bret Stephens. He directly argues brazenly about replacing specifically the white American working class and promotes antinationalism as the core doctrine for the USA. At the same time he is supporting Jewish nationalism and talks about the bigotry of the MAGA base. Someone like him is substantially the same to others who promote this kind of agenda but paint themselves in more far left colors.
Look, I put qualifiers to exactly avoid this debate about whether USA was 100% homogeneous. The USA is not unique in ideastan, because it was also a nation and its ideas were NOT the ideas of liberals/neocons and current establishment. IIRC OP PMclassicmemes is some sort of far leftist Jewish marxist and he can correct me if I am mistaken so he might even be supportive of of the main form form of ideastan which were communist regimes. Which is relevant to the discussion of ideastan and really relevant to modern America. Because marxism and communism was also, perhaps even more so as a lasting influence and more motivating for some of its important supporters, a dogma about the general race, national and even gender question that fits within the lines of modern establishment.
The 20th century has had its own ideastans being created. We have seen cooexistence between ideas and nationalism, but of a different nature than your ideology in original America and we have also seen Left wing ideology dominate against nation with predictable consequences.
Rather than the ideology of the founders, ideastan should be understood more in line with a) foreign nationalists including locals who are foreign nationalist aligned b) far left ideology against nations that isn't the ideology of the founders.
This ideology is a creation of the 20th century with a lot of crossover with marxism. And certainly it is part of the legacy of the American project that it compromised with it. But it doesn't represent original founding however it is also true that 20th century ideology is an evolution of ideologies that existed in the past. Far leftists have existed in French revolution and all sort of revolutionary movements for a long time. However the USA was not a project created by and for them, but where some ideas of this type existed to an extend.
A George Washington figure who called for being jealous of foreign influence, avoid foreign entanglements, supported a country that wanted white men of good character as its citizens, also had some views related to the enlightenemnt but his intellectual tradition (which synergizes nationalist, conservative, religious ideology and even uses rationalism for conservative and nationalist purposes in addition to liberal) is quite different than neocon/modern liberals who share an understanding on ethnicity and identity more in line with Marxists.
At some point the left wing tendencies in the project, especially in reaction to slavery and its abolition and the idea of doubling down in a progressive arc of history, the tendencies of rich oligarchs who might have supported such changes for their own interests, as well as the influence of powerful jewish elites, and even of blacks and others let to a march on institution of left wing ideologues. I would consider the late 19th century and even 20th century marxism and left wing movements and 20th century elites as more fundamental to modern USA than its founding which yes as a project the USA did have certain elements that were somewhat less blood and soil than some other countries, but both in the USA and in Canada and Australia they had the white policy.
Additionally elements in the promises of liberalism already in American culture and constitution that undermined certain aspects of society did exist, but it wasn't inevitable that solving these issues would be so radical. Ideastan is about doubling down in radicalism in how one approaches questions like slavery, interethnic conflict, the existence of nations in a far left and antiwhite form. It sides with transparent foreign nationalists and tolerates them as part of its coalition. But while aspects of this intellectual tradition existed in the USA as well, it competed with more moderate traditions.
This radicalism and its combination with the agendas of tribalists who have a grudge against white christian males and their nations is a core part of such developments. Still, the development of this ideology that America belongs to everyone is a result of mainly late 19th century and 20th century development.
My preference is basically to not be liberal/ideastan and to reject their many failed ideas and excesses seeking a wiser perspective that doesn't destroy valuable ends but not to purity spiral in opposite direction. Just like I am anti communist both on economics and not only on their cultural and ethnic agendas, but support 8 hour work day.
Washington's version is different than mine since I dislike slavery, and not necessarily as isolationist but agree with the idea that is good governance not to put foreign allegiances first and be corrupted by them. I am not an American, but find plenty to respect in figures like Washington and I reject overly blaming figures of the past that were more nuanced and had a more sophisticated model for current predicaments. So a model that combines nationalism, conservatism, with some liberal elements works. In fact you can your own civilization rights as in nationalism and the preservation, betterment and prosperity of your people both through nationalist lenses and lenses that preexist enlightenment thinking, but also through the perspective that this is the superior way to treat the rights of man. So add that in combination with some elements of enlightenment thinking, and be careful to not allow treasonous and liberal purity spiral and you got a better model that is based on rejecting liberal dogmatism of the sort that shares its obsessions with marxists in seeing sexual differences, nations and tribes as illegitimate. And moreover tends to be infested by foreign nationalism that treats certain nations and tribes as much more equal than others.
To avoid errors of the past supporters of the superior model that also follows a historical trajectory and not just something I advocate, we should be more willing to gatekeep against those who have a Whig left wing purity spiral version of history, and/or those foreign tribalists whose agenda isn't to coexist with your nation, but to undermine and even end it.
Too much left wing purity spiral radicalism and on issues of nationhood, race, sex is at the core of the failed ideas that are destroying some of the most successful civilizations to have ever risen on earth and leads to the such peoples becoming hated second class citizens. Rise in failing relationships, large drop in fertility, etc, etc.
And while this is happening some of the factions who are for this radicalism not only redefine their own nation history in a subversive manner, but even falsely promote this idea of them as right wingers, moderates, when they are uncompromising on a very destructive radical agenda. Which is self destructive for their civilization.
TLDR Modern establishment ideologues share more with marxists on cultural, ethnic issues than with the American founders.
While continuing nations exist the first scenario doesn't really capture the intended comparison. USA became a superpower while it had an immigration moratorium and with more homogeneous demographics, although certainly not entirely homogeneous when considering even 20th century migration and some preexisting diversity. So when looking at the time that USA first became a superpower, this wasn't a country that became great by inviting the rest of the world but one that was settled by a particular people and of mainly migrants of similar heritage. Before USA, European countries dominated much of the world for a while while demographically their countries were of course made of Europeans. This idea that success necessitates opening one's borders to the world is not accurate. Even economically the results from such policies by Canada and the UK have been highly unimpressive.
You are also neglecting foreign nationalists oppressing the replaced population, or mass migration as a means of not only replacement against a group targeted deliberately for that, but also used by oligarchs who deliberately want to promote a race to the bottom on wages and employee standards for their own benefit. A nation taken over by foreign groups is not really a case of an Ideastan forming, but the experience is of a more destructive nature. The pretense of what is happening being just Ideastan is rather convenient cover for what is really happening.
I would rather my nation to survive and prosper and us not to be screwed over by foreigners out to destroy us, oppress us and make us second class citizens and take over along with local collaborators and locals who are actually perversely motivated by a weirdo foreign nationalism that they identify with. And any oligarchs who want a race to the bottom in wages and work hours at expense of native labor. So I pick the second even with this hypothetical. But even more so when considering the broader implications that come along with either scenarios and what the hypotheticals represent.
While the scenarios are rigged even then I would say:
To influence the world while losing and selling out our soul is a losing Faustian bargain with the devil. And I would rather not make such a deal.
Elon seems to be pushing this idea that Americans are retarded and need mass legal migration by Indians as happened in Canada and UK which is a stupid idea. It didn't even work economically.
It is interesting to see some themes reappearing:
Identity politics for the migrants and bashing the natives and their racial qualities. While Elon has already started changing policies.
I have also seen some downplayment of discrimination towards white Americans.
Multicultural nation destroying liberalism and the self serving agenda of foreign nationalists who align with it against the native group is at the center of the problems with the politically correct left. It is directly related to oppressing dissenters, and racist discrimination at the expense of natives, and of course the very act of destroying nations, is it self a massive moral problem to put it lightly. Allying with foreign nationalists who are racist is another facet of this and we saw the explosion of anti-white comentary from Indians. The multicultural liberal always sides with such people and tolerates, ignores, downplays, excuse if not persecute those who notice and opposite.
I expect to observe liberals who claim to be antiwoke to continue to share some of the worst qualities of the woke and to implement the kind of authoritarian double standard policies they claimed to oppose. The story of big business types who are looking for cheap labor aligning with this ideology and its anarchotyranical elements isn't a new thing neither. This also raises the issue of parasitism of such big business types since the migration comes with social, political and economic costs that are passed to the rest of society.
You can't have a nice "non woke" multicultural liberalism. Which is in fact the main liberalism that is on offer today.
Why not just cut off H1B entirely and family reunification, etc. Only leave maybe the modified O-1 system and limit the numbers but that also has its own problems.
Just cause foreigners are capable doesn't mean it is good to have them running your country. So you need to implement controls to keep them few and compliant. Or you end up with Indians banning the American president on twitter and running things along with other ethnocentric migrant groups and ideologically aligned liberals.
You need to also care about friendliness when selecting people in addition to competence. So for such purposes you are also selecting for people who are more like those who make disproportionately the math Olympiads who are east Asian nerds who aren't charismatic who are a) smart b) unlikely to run things. And so select against those whose skills and proclivities make them good social climbers and might be inclined to coordinate with their own foreign ethnic group or with others for such purposes. To the extend competent foreigners are to be chosen it must be few, friendly, and mainly smart nerds who don't want to run things and keep them as workers, but not managers.
That and obviously a country should give priority to those competent from their or similar ethnic groups over groups that are more foreign. With again special attention made on friendliness. Some ethnic groups might hold grudges against yours, or more likely to be a nationalist fifth column, despite being closer culturally. Baltics shouldn't prefer Indians because they aren't Russians, but of course a larger % of Russians threaten more fifth column activity and so it makes sense to prefer for example French over Russian migrants.
Not that specifically, although it can be a part of it and more that they are more passive and a greater subset of women can be pushed around by the more aggressive men, or even more aggressive women than would apply to equal % of men. Of course as we see with only fans, it would be inaccurate to assume that any woman that sells sex is necessarily coerced into it. And there are women who benefit from expectation of lower agency and lower responsibility where it is assumed that they aren't responsible for their own choices.
Low agency I would see it to be about taking ownership of one's own choices and taking an active role in directing one's life and one's affairs. It is about being responsible. Women do this less. Which isn't just about only vulnerability since higher agency men often take care of important things for the sake of their wives.
The feminist side sorta acknowledges this low agency view when it comes to the "protect vulnerable women", but blames the patriarchy and opposes it in some cases, and also forgets the negative side of female behavior when it comes to their quest to give more positions to women, including above and beyond their 50% share of population.
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