Belisarius
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User ID: 2663
It seems you are promoting a distorted picture and acting as if never trumpers never didn't do nothing and it is all the bad Trump. Trump is attacking Kemp for not promoting unity and his wife not endorsing Trump after according to Trump benefiting from Trump's endorsement and in private acting much differently. THEN we see Kemp's response. You accept the frame that Trump is the one promoting disunity even though it isn't as clear and you then endorse further disunity as the way for republicans to prove they are men.
I don't know the details of why Kemp's wife wouldn't endorse Trump, but the screenshot it self shows the picture you are trying to paint to be misleading.
At what point would these guys actually draw a line in the sand?
It's hilarious because these Repubs think of themselves as the party of Real Men, but this is absolutely womanly behavior.
Well, maybe not womanly, if Kemp's wife has said she's not voting for Trump even if her husband is, lol.
Of course the republicans who are a party submisive to big donors, lobbies, and the left aren't that great. Kemp's wife is not manly for not voting for the republican candidate. She might like a greater proportion of women than men, be part of this problem, although we need more details to ascertain what is going on. Women are not manly nor courageous for being more liberal than men and that might be part of what is happening.
Trump isn't really all that great but republicans would be even greater losers for listening to such blatantly bad advice to become disunited to prove "manly" against the meanie Trump. They have a problem of people who hate the right being part of it. And even though Trump himself has some of this problem too, much of the opposition to him has to do with the successful subversion of western center and right by the left. Basically symbolically Trump represents more of an opposition than they are willing to tolerate. This doesn't make supporting Trump to be automatically correct, but it does argue against bad reasons for opposing Trump.
It seems you are promoting that you want republicans to be against their own candidate to prove they are men. This is wrongheaded and if the republicans are a political opposition to you, well it looks like you promote division against your political opposition so they lose. Of course neither republicans, nor outsiders should listen to such claims at minimum. Actually if we want to encourage republicans to be acting in a more bold manner, they should be more aggressive against attempts of subversion.
There is a constant repetition of people willing to offer "advice" to what they see as part of the right that goes that to win elections, to prove you are compassionate, non racist, manly, principled, respectable, true Christian, not a far right extremist, etc, you ought to act in this X,Y, Z self destructive manner. Opposing that and powerful donors, and lobbies promoting what is destructive to their civilization is what right wingers should show some genuine courage towards. Doing what is right even if someone would call you a bad label to try to manipulate you, or there is a possibility of genuine cancel culture. It takes zero courage to be self destructive over irrelevant petty drama and therefore enable the left to dominate politics.
I find master morality vs slave morality as another unnecessary division because both concepts have flaws and merits and i find it a bad idea to have to choose from one or the other, when the better choice tries to avoids the flaws of each.
Scott doesn't seem to get it, nor is he interested to get it.
The idea is that Jews and Christians used slave morality to invert values and to promote pathological altruism for their outgroup as a way to get their way. And after that, of course in modernity more besides those groups have done so.
In confronting people who think that their groups also have rights, and want to put their group first, Scott's response is to accuse them of cruelty. He doesn't get it whatsoever, or he doesn't want to get it and finds it convenient to double down. This isn't an approach that sees the nuance.
The reality is that the typical liberal ideologue whether Marcuse, Yglesias, Ozy or even Scott are not the kindest people because they think they should rule over us. Their will to power, also does not make them supermen, although they might share some of the pathology of the people they accuse of adopting master morality. Additionally, there is something very cruel in the disregard of the interests and rights of specific groups that people like Scott want to put other groups (like Africans) on the pedestal above their own interests. I don't buy Scotts own conception of his own kindness (and nor of others he shares ideology) and I disagree with him trying to disregard right wingers as just cruel. He is not charitably taking seriously and engaging with their argument, but tries to just dimiss it.
Moreover, there is a connection between the self conception of far left radicals as the best people ever, and their right wing opposition as evil, cruel, etc, and their willingness to inflict cruelty, under the idea that these left wing radicals are just out to do good.
Ultimately, I find it a convenient way to sneakilly disregard the interests of right wingers and their favorite groups, while virtue signalling.
So, that is my problem with slave morality. That it can be abused, and that pathological altruism when coming internally, not incited from manipulative outsiders is also detrimental. Which is part of what most people complaining about slave morality have an issue with.
As for master morality, I actually agree with people like Scott that it can lead to disregarding morality. It can lead into an ideology that is in favor of preying towards the weak.
Right wingers and their associated ethnic groups have rights, interests, and it is fine to put their own first. It is grossly immoral for anyone to act outraged at the suggestion of such groups having rights, community, interests and not being pathological altruists. Demand for people to be pathological altruists and condemning them as evil when they are not is immoral, cruel, hostile, and inhumane.
The fact that there are authoritarian oppressive organizations which are hostile against right wingers, and associated ethnic groups and for disregarding their rights while talking of love, doesn't change the reality. They just use in their propaganda the idea that they are about love, when in actuality they are about hatred and keeping their outgroup down.
That being said, I do think you have a certain obligation to not harm outsiders and justice is about the golden rule and reciprocity. Is about mutually respected red lines. For example, within a society a parent should put their children first, but do so by working hard, not by stealing and harming others.
Some component of altruism can be part of it, but never pathological altruism which is immoral and often demanded by people who often enough identify more with the interests of foreign tribes (we see liberals to have in polls strong antiwhite views for example and a strong negative bias towards whites) who try to subvert people to act against their own interests. So, trying to make the weak and incompetent to be equal to those doing better, is not justice but rules that protect the weak from predation from the strong is part of justice. Nor is it moral to be forcing others to sacrifice everything and lose what is very important and precious to them for the sake of outsiders.
I would say, that reciprocity can exist even in a system where there is some level of limited redistribution and help under the idea that if they were in the same position, they would help us. And by not demanding too destructive sacrifices on people, like accepting their ethnic group's destruction. This is definitely NOT the deal offered today by those demanding pathological altruism in favor of Africans.
So yeah, I think both slave morality and master morality in the way they tend to be understood are not the best paths. They aren't always opposite since sneaky extreme nationalists can pretend to be pathological altruists motivated just by sympathy towards the weak and underdogs when promoting rules that harm their ethnic outgroups. Or, genuine slave morality by one group can help feed into another group's hubris and that group would then in turn be acting rapaciously and with extreme entitlement and believing themselves to have zero moral obligation towards others.
Prison time is just one form of punishment. A ruined reputation can be a fair punishment by your community for committing particular crimes. It can be an unfair reaction, of course when the community is judgemental over nonsense. What this guy has done is sufficiently bad for him to deserve to be hated for it by Dutch fans. This also helps as a deterrent. It also isn't unfair for the Guardian to argue that a year might be too little of a punishment for this crime.
The Guardian have launched a lot of misplaced moral crusades, but I don't object to a 19year old who had sex with a 12 years old and is a groomer and a child rapist, getting hatred for it.
I do object with the Guardian and other British media pointing particular fingers towards the Dutch. Any such criticism should come along with a lot of self criticism. I don't trust however the likes of Guardian would succeed in changing things only to proper directions. Britain is the kind of country that arrests autistic children for calling a lesbian, a female cop which was in fact a lesbian. Britain due in part of the influence of media like the Guardian, is not at the place that is an example for other countries.
I can't find the link of it now, but I also recall a news article of an autistic, introverted boy getting arrested in Britain because he touched his own classmate in the shoulder.
A nice tale. They are all just making these up. Not relevant that Maxwell was Israel superspy and his daughter is involved in the same business but somehow not for the same side. The Jewich chauvinists attracted to the whole project are just a coincidence. So are the constant visits of Ehud Barak, Israel ex prime minister with myriad of visits. https://www.timesofisrael.com/ehud-barak-met-with-jeffrey-epstein-dozens-of-times-flew-on-private-plane-report/
You are just so incurious about why exactly Epstein was collecting the evidence of politicians raping children.
Sorry, but neither your tale in diminishing the evidence is convincing, nor do I buy your intentions in telling it at face value. Especially since you previously pretended that those evidence didn't exist but now you are aware of Ben Menashe and ready to dismiss him. And as I now added the Ehud Barak issue, obviously this was far from exhaustive.
A Mossad blackmail operation, as part of a facet of this intlligence operation, is what fits the evidence and the testimonies.
And nobody in Mossad, which has tons of discontented leakers willing to speak to the press, has discussed intelligence Epstein’s blackmail operations supposedly produced. Given a substantial majority of those Epstein cavorted with were either powerless (like Prince Andrew) or Jewish, the objective of this supposed blackmail operation for Mossad is not even clear. Was this a dastardly scheme to blackmail Jewish billionaires into… supporting Israel? Certainly one can’t imagine them doing so otherwise.
And what was this very Jewish operation of people like Ghislane out to do then but obviously to collect blackmail. Or are you disputing the tapes now? Which somehow haven't been used to reveal the clients.
Other than the "nothing to see here" black hole, that is not naive, something worse, you really aren't serious here but engaging in desperatly trying to shut down this issue, this kind of naivety is not natural, rare can a person manage to combine an ability to not notice such important issues (like tapes) and make such strong claims.
Why were they including other Jews in the operation? Probably because like Epstein some of them were perverts, as a reward for loyalty, like the super jewish chauvinist and Epstein lawyer Alan Dershowitz, accused of rape by victims of this network. Some like Barak were probably there for the intelligence gathering and to coordinate it, and not to make direct use of Epstein's "products".
However, I don't see why they wouldn't implicate Jews too, to get them to also doubly work for such causes. Or to let them know that if they sing, they are going to get exposed. Not only blackmail but Jews like Maxwell or Epstein end up getting killed too by Mossad. Do you have an answer other than nothing to see here? Why were they apparently blackmailing Jews. Why so many Jews involved has an obvious answer of some of them willing to work along with it. Or do you deny that as is the tendency in such issue to deny facts as conspiracy theories? Because the blackmailing of Jews by Jews in the Epstein case is a fact. And the backing of Epstein by another pro Israel Jewich chauvinist in Wexner who created a group of Jewish billionaires in MEGA group was also a fact.
Other than obfuscation and throwing Fear Uncertainty and Doubt, are you interested like OJ about the real perpetrators and who is actually behind the Epstein (and Maxwell) issue? I guess we should stop asking questions and just end the discussion at "it just happens" and "not Mossad".
The real interesting question is whether state within a state Jewish NGOs in general are interconnected, and have any Mossad ties. There is a reason people like Epstein were allowed to operate and it isn't that "it is just normal in a society" where nothing can be done, but that broader network which is in operation, until it is brought down.
There was also the accusation from another Ben Menashe worked for Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate from 1977 to 1987. accused directly of Epstein being Mossad. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12926465/jeffrey-epstein-list-friendship-israeli-prime-minister-ehud-barak.html Laura Goldman, Epstein's friend also thought that Ghislane father and her daughter were Mossad agents https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7761169/Jeffrey-Epstein-book-claims-Ghislaine-Maxwell-Mossad-spies.html
The suspicion of Robert Maxwell being Mossad includes plenty more of course. Here is a 2002 hebrew book from Amazon about Robert Maxwell, Israel's superspy. https://www.amazon.com/-/he/Martin-Dillon/dp/0786710780
There is also that "he was of intelligence", and the sweetheart deal.
One of the backers of Epstein was the Jewish billionaire Les Wexner of Victoria Secret who was also one of the two founders of the MEGA group, a group of wealthy Jews pushing "jewish" issues. Probably it self a Mossad front or related group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Wexner
So it is just not true at all that the only reason to think Epstein is Mossad is because Epstein said so.
Like another thing you have argued in the past that Epstein just killed himself, which is convenient as it helps end the conversation and not look at who this network really is, which also doesn't make sense, since security cameras were off and all sorts of coincidences that don't just happen at the time Epstein was killed.
You are just blatantly wrong when making such strong claims about this not being Mossad. And it is plausible you are denying this because you want to help cover up for Mossad.
Given he was a notorious compulsive liar,
My experience when reading those among the Jews who I consider compulsive liars is that they are also braggarts to an extend. These aren't people who succeed by an ability to act in a manner that would never lead reasonable, moral, interested parties in uncovering the truth, but by using all the dark arts.
Obfuscate with bullshit and misdirecting, while friends up top help cover the issue up and censor inconvenient facts is part of the way to get away with crimes. Promote gratuitous insults and try to ridicule those those willing to think that 1 +1 = 2, and what smells and quacks like a Mossad or otherwise Jewish network operation, is in fact just that. Implicate enough people through blackmail as in the Epstein case. Try to make it a taboo to oppose blatantly criminal, and immoral acts and promote a mentality both within the Jewish community and outside of it, of people acting as collosal racist hypocritical extremists, that they side with the most depraved behavior, under a misplaced sympathy towards Jews. So moral corruption of nodes of society, and getting the corrupt to help cover such things and help the people behind Epstein get away with it by what they say, and what they don't say. Getting people to support whatever absurdity if it will be perceived as pro Jewish.
Criminals who rape children are not some sort of geniuses who wouldn't admit ever what they were doing. And it is also pretty fucking obvious that Epstein crew is a Mossad operation. Like Italian Mafia members sometimes reveal themselves, Jewish criminals are going to reveal information. As well of course, to be fair, we have people (like with other people involved with such activites) people involved with Israeli intelligence who have been willing to reveal some of what is behind the curtain and expose what Mossad is up to.
And you will of course claim that there is nothing to see here. There are people who both support such conspiracies and want people to not take them seriously and to ridicule those who do and have an interest in creating the perception of everything being imperceptible. In the real world however, we don't live in the darkness where such things can not be perceived at all and are unknowable.
The important thing to happen isn't just knowledge which itself is necessary but obviously we need to see shutting down such criminal networks down and to go after parties like Lauder and others involved, or credibly suspected to be such. Suspicions and acting on them, are a good thing and would have saved plenty of people from monsters like Epstein and his associates and handlers. Indeed, we do need both arrests and more investigations. One help bring the other, if implicated parties like mobsters, everyone involved is facing entire life in prison for being part of a criminal organization, or if groups like MEGA are themselves declared parts of a criminal organization, then you could have people singing to reduce the number of years they spent behind bar. More surveillance and putting in what should be suspected to be Mossad front, double agents working to bring them down (including in addition to non Jews, possibly some honorable Jews, who will try to take down the evil ones, in addition to those flipped due to not wanting to spend life in prison).
Blackmailing American politicians to change policy for example, could even expand to qualify the activities of groups throwing millions around to character assassinate politicians for not putting foreign interests above their own nation's , and furthermore it should be investigated if not only as we know ADL and AIPAC communicate and coordinate but whether such organizations are under communication and converge with agenda of people who blackmail politicians with criminal activity like the Epstein crew. These powerful Jewish NGOs have become a state within a state, at the same time Epstein types get away with blackmailing politicians, and the issue is stopped before going after the handlers. It is long time for this societal malaise to be shut down.
Alas, this mafia, is now more connected with the institutions that should be trying to stop them than the Italian mafia (which even tried its own version of the anti defamation league for Italians) was when it started getting destroyed in the 90s especially. Still there are things that could be done if one is interested in justice and isn't satisfied with the "nothing to see here and only an idiot would think otherwise!" routine.
I don't agree that self proclaimed mistake theorists are more motivated by the desire to get the correct answer, than to support their side. My argument is that the label is associated with a broader movement and views that for a very long time organizing in their groups, has been proclaiming its ideology as scientific, rational. And it is a movement that is about a shared belief system and tribal sympathies. A movement that has operated for quite a while, more than a century. A lot of blind faith and fanaticism. A lot of propaganda about how they are rational, the future, etc, etc.
This faith to their own righteousness and rationality, just cause isn't about the supernatural, doesn't mean it isn't a very deep and blind faith. This is a core dogma of rationalistic movements that are about specific ideological priors and specific ends, even where such ends could, or would be harmful. There isn't any strong tendencies for reexamination and internal change, in such situations.
The problem is that for people who tend to get right answers most of the time, their mistake theory is functionally indistinguishable from conflict theory in favor of "people who get the right answers more often than not" privilege (from the perspective of people who are wrong). Their correct answers oppress those who don't get things right, thus the need to redistribute their correctness, by force if necessary.
I agree that it is functionally indistinguishable.
As for them being on the right, imposing the truth to those who are wrong, that is an enormous issue. From a perspective of various religions, imposing their dogma, is imposing the truth against the ignorant and heretics.
To give in to the presumption that self proclaimed mistake theorists get it right will excuse their attempt to force their way to the rest of us, no? Movements proclaiming themselves to have it all figured out of rationalist type have existed since the French revolution with its cult of reason, and some of various different intensities. Not all are the same but all have strong shared elements. Their record has resulted in plenty of excesses and failures to put it in understated terms.
She is both a far left extremist who supported BLM and in height of violence saw the protests as necessary to continue to get more change, favored police decriminalization, open borders, DEI, Green New Deal and a mainstream Democrat. This republican anti Kamala video includes most of them except her BLM 2020 protests comments https://youtube.com/watch?v=bHlb0z1vZm8
How much backlash did Kamala face then or now for any of this? And how alone has she been?
This is what the Democrats are now. Maybe she is somewhat even more left wing than any random Democrat, but they are a far left party and the difference between Harris and other Democrats will not be significant as the default of liberal democrat politics has shifted to a more radical direction. It represents the 21st century type of far left which is of course different than early 20th century far left of orthodox marxism. Nor is this a constantly anti-establishment far left but a pro being the establishment far left.
As for the voters, I do think that there will be an attempt to fool the electorate by promoting her as a more moderate politician than she is. But the issue isn't X or Y random politician but a broader trend of a shift of the mainstream, and of the Democrats in general towards the far left.
There is an obvious bias by many against describing the Democrats as far leftists, under the fear of being perceived too partisan, or right wing. Suppose someone writes an article analyzing the election and the candidates, it would actually be their duty to properly inform people about where the parties and candidates stand and to talk about how far left the Democrats actually are.
Unfortunately, part of what it has been about in the original article and how it has been expressed has been to relate it with particular tribe and dogma and to be passive aggressive about other political tribes being conflict theorists.
I fundamentally don't agree with the positive idea that rationalists have about themselves.
So I see the way you define it to be part of a motte and bailey.
A mistake theorist believes that their opponent is making an error in reasoning, while a conflict theorist believes that their opponent is motivated to support their side.
But everyone is motivated to support their side. And in doing so, they tend to see others as wrong.
Rationalists who are obviously liberals who are animated by their dogma and priors, are just not truthful if they act as if they are only motivated by what is rational and correct. In fact it is quite an aggressive and arrogant move to make such strong claim and distinction, and it has been a core part of how it has been used. And we have seen the rationalist types including Scott Siskind get involved with all sorts of networks.
Indeed, I would suggest people to research the rationalist movement without looking just as this specific subset of rationalist movement. Which isn't that different from the general. All sorts of far leftists, marxists and liberals proclaiming their ideology rationalism, scientific has existed for quite a while in modernity. The trap in this movement has always been declaring their ideology scientific and their approach rational, bias and tribalism free, even though that isn't at all the case. Basically, rather than achieving what they claim to aspire, their presumptuousness of having done so and being dismissive of other valid perspectives like the ones you see in Scott's article that genuinely does that and associates conclusions about all sorts of topics with mistake theory or negatively with conflict theory (which is going to influence people, you can't strip that away), leads to a peculiar dogmatism that is unaware of itself. Which makes the movement arrogant.
That doesn't lead only to marxists and scientific marxism but even people like Karl Popper who end up becoming the mentors of people like George Soros.
Well, my point was that Scott and others following his template associate mistake theory with their preferred ideology and conclusions and conflict theory with groups they oppose. They attempt to paint a picture of correct views of a good mistake theorist and of bad conflict theorists. It is also about being sneaky and passive aggressive in diminishing opposing political tribes. This is an aspect of the whole issue that can't be ignored.
Another aspect about being a supposed neutral outside observer vs taking part in the issue as a motivated party with again a lot of pretending.
If both perspectives in proportion makes sense as part of a whole, why do you think the division of people at such categories and being one or the other, is legitimate? When the point in the way it is presented is that it is ideal to be a mistake theorist and falling down to be a conflict theorist. If we are to use only the more limited way you define it, which is far from all the baggage the term carries, shouldn't the ideal to be neither a mistake theorist, nor a conflict theorist and just have an accurate version of reality?
I'm a conflict theorist, and I think a technocracy is stupid. I'm happy to argue why at great length, but really all I'd be doing is pointing at the horrifying record of actual "technocracy" as it exists in the real world.
I am not a conflict theorist because it is simply one in the long line of labels meant to manipulate people by putting them in inadequate boxes. Like a lot of the phobes or isms. The goal is to get you to act in a certain manner, lest you fit into the negative misused label.
Mistake theorist is code for Scott's ideology for the most part in the way it is promoted in the article.
Also, the examples chosen are deliberate.
See:
Mistake theorists think it’s silly to complain about George Soros, or the Koch brothers. The important thing is to evaluate the arguments; it doesn’t matter who developed them.
There is a reason the names are George Soros (who Scott endorsed to have influence in Hungary) and Koch brothers, and not a controversial genuinely far right figure. and you actually won't see the people who in the text their preferences are constantly associated with mistake theory, separate that kind of people with the arguments.
I don't see why the idea that technocracy sucks must be explicitly tied with the "conflict theorist" concept and all the baggage it carries and can't be related with priors unrelated to that. Just cause it wasn't framed in that manner in Scott's article, doesn't mean it doesn't qualify. And why being pro technocracy, is related to being a supposed "mistake theorist". Certainly technocracy supporters tend to not only have their vision of society but also consider those opposing their vision as enemies/opposition to be opposed. And the technocracy in practice has a certain identity, and preferences, which is related to how the people supporting technocracy see it to be. And it does crush people beyond its boot. This idea of the generalized technocracy for the smartest and best, is just an easy way to assume no direction. However, the people who support technocracy do have a direction in mind.
The concept is just a self serving rhetoric that helps Scott promote his political preferences and divide things in a way that encourages cohesion in favor of his political tribe and against others, by putting people in a box, associating rationalists and people who support similar stuff with mistake theory, and other groups with conflict theory, in a way that loses plenty of nuance.
Addressing the idea of people becoming conflict theorists instead of mistake theorists, I consider this an illegitimate way to divide people.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/
That conflict theorist article is really bad. Its Scott naming what he prefers people to think on all sorts of views mistake theory and attacking other including valid and invalid perspectives as conflict theory. See where he talks about democracy, racism, technocracy, etc.
It isn't a legitimate road to being a fair minded truth telling person. It essentially means agreeing with what Scott Siskind wants, to avoid him sticking a negative label to you, and getting the positive label. And of course since then countless people have done that game of calling themselves charitable, nice mistake theorists and others who don't share their rationalist type ideology to be conflict theorists.
Other than that, it is too associated with Scott constantly making such associations with different views that makes you a mistake theorist vs a conflict theorist.
i.e. when he says:
Conflict theorists think a technocracy is stupid.
and many more of that vein.
I would just discard the whole concept, as an intellectual dead end and as an example of the negative part of politics. Being sneaky passive aggressive, with excessive intellectual arrogance where it is unwarranted and dismissing too much debate, to adopt a very limited worldview and to promote intellectual close mindedness and certainty where it is unwarranted and detrimental, based on positive and negative associations. Where Scott's goes so far as to directly call out specific assertions (like supporting technocracy) as mistake theorist or conflict theorist.
There is also no good reason to dismiss the value of conflict relations as a part of reality, including of those who are in conflict against you.
It isn't the high road to avoid the ugly side of politics, and it isn't a way to successfully be clear headed and avoid the fog. It doesn't promote such methodology that is independent of foregone conclusions, but rather promotes adopting uncritically Scott's perspective on various issues, and team and the self belief that in doing so you have already succeeded in being the good mistake theorist, instead of the bad conflict theorist.
As for the ugliness of politics, there will always be politics. And it will be influenced by those participating it. How ugly or good politics can be is not set in stone. Feedback loops of conflict of mutual escalation are certainly possible, and of mutual anger. But that has to do with what the arrangement is and what incentives there is for dominant rhetoric. Things are not as ugly as possible by default. For example, if my neighbor respects my fence, and tries to have a good relationship with me, we would have cordial relationships. Good relationship are about respecting important restrictions and red lines. If he constantly makes onerous demands, tries to steal my land on grounds of me having no right to it, demands me to house his relatives and pay for them, accuses me of being a bad guy who is bigotted for not giving in, well that is going to create an explosive relationship. I am going to be pissed off and angry too. I believe the solution to the ugliness of politics is to enforce and have dominant just norms. Which are quite different than manipulative one sided demand on the name of justice which causes problems. Anyway, if you find yourself in such a situation where you are dealing with such bad behaving people, then you can't escape an ugly situation.
Including by running away. But it is possible for the dominant political arrangements to be such that are less conflict inducing because the dominant moral priors and agenda, are such that doesn't temple over the sacred, much of which does have to do with national and religious self determination and existence. But there is often going to be an ugly side due to exactly that competition and will to gain over the other which often includes masquerading such agendas under nicer labels, or ideologies. Even though there is also a side of conflict that is for good, such as obviously self defense and plenty of grey zones. I don't think utopia is possible, but it is the case that with better type of politics, you can have less of negative things like conflict, prioritization of organized group minority interests at expense of common good because it benefits the party, narcissism over irrelevant differences, use of politics to destroy the communities of your outgroup and to destroy them as a people, etc, etc.
Belisarius
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2mo ago
Good. Like I said in my first post on the issue, Biden really ought to appear even if he is diminished since in a succession, you need to see the guy endorsing their successor and a tweet doesn't cut it.
Or is simply too incapacitated to make a public appearance?
Of course, I am not saying that Biden has been murdered, or that he is dead and you are twisting things there. Assuming he is dead, yes it is plausible to a degree above just anything being a possibility that he has been murdered considering the circumstances and the timing. It is a plausible scenario.
Assuming by default that nothing nefarious going on, where it is suspicious that there is something and people both have motive, act in a manner where the death of the president is related to a tweet choosing successor that can't be refuted by an alive Biden is unreasonable and enables with criminal ploters to get away with such actions. Reasonable suspicion is a good thing and I find your preference of assuming coincidence to show bias towards influential networks and their honesty. Note that this is conditional on Biden being dead in response to a post claiming the implications of Biden dying close to Trump's assassination attempt and my default assumptions on this issue are different because I don't have a strong view of Biden being dead.
We don't need to come up with it, it's a reasonable to do and unreasonable to not consider it a possibility, or worse to dismiss it. Biden dying in these circumstances would be genuinely incredibly suspicious by the nature of the events. It is possible a coincidence due to his frailty, and it is also reasonable to bring this up as a possibility but the timing matters and so it is a by default a reasonable thing to be suspicious about. Because he announced the successor on twitter without doing an appearance. Actually this kind of thing would be suspicious and speculated about when it comes to even roman emperors who in their death bed announced a guy there as successor and have been accused by people then and historians for murdering them.
Dismissing possibility of plots is certainly against the precautionary principle and allows criminal plotters to get away with them and it isn't a reasonable course. Of course history is full of plotters plotting nefariously. Not to mention that organizations like CIA have played important role in promoting propaganda dismissing conspiracies when that is what they do, plenty of criminal plots.
The way to go is to want more scrutiny, not to shut down these issues which is itself is suspicious. And there are some who dismiss such issues because they support those doing so. People who claimed the mafia didn't exist at minimum sympathized or had a relationship with the mafia, or were blackmailed like Hoover. We need people to show some courage and desire to put networks or in fact organizations like the CIA, Epstein's clique and clients and backers under the microscope and investigate and shut down such activities. Not just to dismiss the issues.
Also, Ceasar's wife should not be only honest but appear honest. I very much would rather political players to be sensitive in acting in a way that isn't raising real suspicions, which requires transparency. I am not interested in dismissing such things by default because that means giving them an opportunity to get away with criminal plots with zero scrutity. We need events to unfold in a manner where are not given reason to suspect foul play, by acting in a manner that doesn't make it plausible. We know for a fact that things dismissed as just paranoia like the goverment putting their thumps in the scale to censor in social media, or covid being the result of gain of function research, are true in first case and highly plausible in the later.
Shadow war? Maybe. Or the same group behind both. If Biden dies so close to the Trump assassination it raises the possibility that there were more plotters than the shooter related to Trump's assassination attempt. The same way Oswald being killed by Jack Ruby and then Robert Kennedy being killed by an assassin, raised the possibility of a conspiracy.
If Biden is dead it would look like a group might have decided to get rid of Trump in an opportunist and not highly competent manner and when that failed, thinking that Biden will certainly lose, they decided to get rid of him. Now, what about forcing Biden to resign? There is still opportunism there, and certainly culpability in regards to promoting a narrative that painted Trump as existential threat, and the possibility of such plots remain. But Biden's death would demonstrate a higher possibility of people brazen enough plotting to kill Presidents.
People would be correct to come with conspiracy theories that Biden might have met an unnatural fate if Biden is now dead while his twitter account announces the successor and just after the Trump assassination attempt. Events would be mega sketchy.
The selection of the new presidential canditate only through a tweet and with no appearance of Biden, certainly has the strong appearance of a coup. If Biden is conscious and can string two sentences together even with gaffes and dementia, he really ought to get behind a camera and speak what his account has twitted. He has that responsibility to his country even if he doesn't feel up to it.
There is also the possibility that he is alive but that tweet didn't represent his views at the time and there was a sort of a coup and he lacks control to counter it, especially after Kamala' endorsement by many.
Or maybe he was pressured and possibly threatened (scandals, prosecution of his son, or even him) but he did do it and he is bitter about it.
I don't see much justification of how things have changed for McWhorter to be calling for the assassination of Trump. He isn't a reasonable guy who lost his mind because there is an event that justified him supporting openly Trump being assassinated, but someone who should lose the quality of being considered reasonable and he proved that such estimation was mistaken. Trump is someone who isn't even particularly right wing. The criticism should be on the mentality of people like McWhorter, who have no adequate justification for this. My belief is we live in an age of too much unnecessary rage against compromising establishment "right" figures who probably deserve criticism for failing to even do their promised duty. So, that outrage is unreasonable, and so is putting people like Trump on the pedestal for being targets of it, even if he should be defended against such unjustified anger.
McWhorter being dangerously wrong is part of the fact that his politics are unreasonable and he is unreasonable.
Belisarius
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2mo ago
There is likely a friendship there too, but Loury and McWhorter podcast together is also very much so political content. I also get the impression that part of their friendship has to do with their common political ground.
Glen Loury can't abandon the propaganda of McWhorter as a " moderate, centrist calm reasonable person" while criticizing him for his comments of favoring the assassination of Trump.
We really are living in the times of the cult of symbolic centrism, symbolic antiracism, symbolic racism, symbolic nazism, etc, etc. Where groups and individuals are assigned irrational undeserving positive and negative status and associations, based on false expectations.
Hope we see some genuine lowering of status and consequences for people like McWhorter and the end of the illusion that people like Loury want to maintain. Is Loury going to stop constantly talking with McWhorter in the way he isn't talking with many people to the right of his?
While this is true with countries like Britain which is a very underrated totalitarian police state oppressive far leftist tyranny, arresting far more people for speech than Russia, and even more so per capita, I do think there is value in not siding automatically with owners vs employees. There are definetly European countries which are freer than USA due to being more right wing and having less enforcement, which in the USA private organisations and state within the state and connected with the state and especially deep state activist mega groups like ADL (which can get Jewish CEO of huge companies to retalitate with adverts towards Elon Musk.
Fundamentally, the kind of people who owned media, the networking, mouthy capitalists, the activist capital that does exist are going to impose left wing cultural values on their workers and hire these kind of people. But it is the wrong framing of leftism vs rightism.
The right should not see itself as the party of giving rich cliques, or donors, whatever they want, whether it goes against the national interest, good cultural standards, average family, public morality, the right to speak the unpopular truth, the separation of political with regular life, etc. In addition to those who acquire their wealth through shady means, a person can be skilled and hard working and lucky, and connected and help economically, while politically be destructive because they use their funds to promote bad causes.
There is also a genuine value in the agency factor of the public vs smaller minorities. There is a lot of whining about the immorality of the mob and there is some truth too it, but there is also even greater immorality and much more focus in targeting them for influence, of isolated minority groups and elites. Conversely, it is harder to get the majority to go against the collective interest, even though it is possible, because the majority like smaller minorities can be also unwise. Still on many issues, the majority like immigration wanted one thing, and got something different. Most importantly, the majority can be manipulated and lead by said organized minorities.
Which then raises the question of what ought to be done about it. It isn't a simple goverment as protective of private sphere since organized activist groups and lobbies will try to capture as much influence in the goverment too. A part of the solution is to ban groups like hope not hate, ADL, OFCOM, open society, and many more and try to remove their fellow travelers who marched through the institutions. Where for example in Britain they failed to solve burglary in half the country in 3 years, while they are arresting in record numbers for speech, while lead under woke leadership. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13152403/amp/Police-failed-solve-single-break-half-country.html
These should be the targets for firing and even making their organizations illegal and in the worst cases subject to criminal prosecution, not people working at supermarkets. I also think there is a value in letting people err and have freedom to be wrong, even though we do need to force those controlling powerful institutions to a) not be enforcing, censorious of immoral morality b) to follow good moral standards and pursue the common good of their society and people.
I would love to see people like Soros clan and their top open societies people, the left wing activists, the NGO types, the version of these people within the corporate hierarchy, the new left bureaucrats, the extremist editors, many journalists and these kind of people to be suppressed and lose in all manner of ways. However, I don't want to see simple working people get fired for having asinine opinions.
Trump is of course not a national socialist in his politics. He is insufficiently nationalist, insufficiently conservative and insufficiently socialist. His republicans pander to minorities without even directly naming white people to appeal to. His current manifestation probably isn't sufficiently nativist and natioanlist for moderate nationalism. His policies on economic sphere weren't even moderate politically and fit more with Koch agenda, even if he isn't as orthodox in his rhetoric as they would like.
The social democrats of Denmark who are a moderate nationalist party and quite more socialistic than Trump would also be defamatory to call them national socialists. There have been plenty of political parties that are moderate nationalist through modern history in european societies, where it used to be either the default or what people assumed these parties to be and there is definitely a significant qualitative difference between what I would categorize as moderate nationalism vs what I would consider extreme nationalism. And I tend to consider something to be moderate only if it is sufficiently hardcore to qualify at such. Moderate doesn't mean weak to me.
Even though we live in an age where anti european antinaivists who actually have an extreme agenda see all moderate nationalism for Europeans as extremist and try to associate it with nazism. In an age where moderate nationalism in favor of Europeans is under attack by a movement which is tolerant or supportive of quite stronger nationalism for other groups, hence their opposition to the national rights of their ethnic outgroup, and it is actually an extreme condition for a people to not have a collective community and breaking their roots from the past. This isn't to say that everyone who does this understands the doublethink and the inconsistency, but it exists as part of the movement. You seem like a right winger of sorts so I don't understand your point.
Also, the dominant tradition outside of actual socialists combined some level of socialism with capitalism. The idea of a third way between socialism and capitalism, did not just originate with fascist types or nazis, who were more socialistic than most.
The libertarian meme I have seen about statists and collectivists and calling everything fascists is wildly propagandistic. There have been a lot of non fascists who (maybe even share some influence with each other) promoted such model. Post war occupied Germany for example followed such a model of trying to make a deal between capitalists and workers. This kind of thinking also attracted people who have might have been influenced by fascism, had some ideological crossover in regards to economics, but weren't fascists. Including people who were anti-parliamentarians and believing that a dictatorship was a better way to rule.
Both some level of socialism and nationalism has been quite widespread and it simply ahistorical to be calling it national socialism when that regime was more infamous about occupation of european countries which includes atrocities and imperialistic conquest. While they deserve some bad reputation, they are a beaten dead horse with exaggerated negative attention for propagandistic purposes. Like the trope of a a shit politician who sucks at ruling blaming everything on his predecessor, but much worse since this is an 80 years old defeated group. But an even bigger problem of such propaganda is bad unsuitable comparisons.
The Democrats are quite more socialist although also compromising with establishment capitalism. Trump's politics are not even of a social democrat moderate nationalist. He seems to be more on the hardcore big donor corporatism capitalism side. I doubt he would introduce a VAT. Nor is a VAT an example of someone being a socialist since a VAT exists in a huge amount of countries which aren't run by socialists. Although, of course you can oppose it as bad policy, or too socialistic.
Here is an excellent article on the Russian revolution:
https://www.theconundrumcluster.com/p/you-should-really-read-this-introduction
Before the bloody civil war there was a lot of incompetence and appeasement. People to the right of other figures, refusing to use power, abdicating their duties and giving power to people to their left and letting them get away with crimes. Then came the violence.
A very rough summary of this: You had the Tsar giving power to a liberal relative Grand Duke Michael, who gave power to the Constituent Assembly (which imprisoned Tsar Nicolas)and the monarchy disintegrated to provisional assembly to lead the country during the elections lead by to Kerensky who followed a "no enemies to the left" dogma while the Bolsheviks were rising. Lenin ended up removed from prison. Both The Grand Duke and Tsar were murdered and Kerensky ended up in exile.
If they actually suppressed the radicals with force, and didn't give them more power the civil war would had been averted or less severe.
Point being, refusal to try to shut down leftist radicals and being afraid more of doing so than them makes future conflict larger, inevitable, and also their future atrocities. Putting and keeping people like Lenin in prison is more important than violent fantasies. It is only a failure to keep law and order and suppress such elements that lead to the Russian civil war and then the red terror.
Rather than lamenting future violence, you ought to be critical of the current right refusing to use power to suppress leftist extremists. I do agree with most of what you say of how the left breaks norms. I also don't want to see things breaking down in the ways the Russian revolution, civil war did.
But the right also breaks norms by complicity and not stopping them. For example, how about actual strong reprisals like trying to shut down left wing media with unhinged hateful rhetoric towards right wingers? Such as advocating to limit their reach by reprisals from their specific state We know the republican party is willing to do plenty of authoritarian moves, by looking them doing so when it comes to the Israel issue.
Although stopping criminals does include a component of physical violence, which is part of any duties of any police force, there are ways to exercise power, (and you are a moderator who have some power of your own however limited), that is different than just physically hurting people.
For example treating antifa as a criminal organization and then arresting their members, and have them subject to prosecution could be one of the possible ideas to suppress leftist extremism, targeting one of the worst of the worst groups most characteristic of it and it would qualify as qualitatively different than just physically harming in a purity spiral people identified as a different political tribe.
Another example, would be to try to debar antifa lawyers.
I see suppression of leftist/liberal radicalism and anti-right wing radicalism as preventive of current and future escalating violence, and the refusal to act as ensurer of things escalating...
You can use hypotheticals to excuse any crime by claiming the other party would react the same. Especially if you don't care about whether your right wing outgroup might have valid complaints about political persecution, and your left wing ingroup might be promoting dishonest narratives.
For example, an apologist for communist crimes could claim that the right wing dissidents murdered by communists would them selves kill communists and then not consider the perspective of how much worse the communists really were comparatively to right wing dissidents.
The effect of not condemning assassination attempts tied with very extreme rhetoric by pervasive amount of people, including in media (just recently a comedian said that if Trump was elected his family was going to be put in a concentration camp on Jimmy Kimmel), and attacking those condemning that rhetoric and the right, is to excuse it.
There is a time and a place for different rhetoric. Is this the proper time and place for you and cimarafa to blame right wingers based on hypotheticals? And what effect does this have?
In the current circumstances, it is a fair interpretation that attacking condemnation of leftists excusing the attacks, helps excuse it. Since if everyone does it, then it isn't a problem. Cimarafa even outright says the inflamabory claim that it is boo outgroup to condemn leftists excusing violence, because there are right wingers who would do the same.
Boo outgroup becomes the excuse for censoring opposition to far left extremsim.
The cultural phenomenon of understating and not caring when events such as this happen and is done by right towards left, or worse, attacking those who do, helps make them more common.
Conversely, condemning liberal extremism and suppressing it and a culture were the media, and politicians like Biden, isn't treating legitimate opposition, as enemies of democracy, well that would make it much less likely. Especially since an important part of the conflict between Biden vs Trump has been when their agenda has been the one that shits all over constitutional duties, which include not only not persecuting political opposition, but also failing to protect your borders and in fact doing the opposite. That is a massive legitimate grievance, where Trump the tyrannical fascist is not a legitimate grievance. Same with Biden the cultural far leftist vs Trump the identitarian extremist on the right. The first is a legitimate grievance, the later isn't.
But in any case, there has been an attempted assassination attempt against Trump, and not Biden. People in the crowd have died. Following rhetoric in media and in echochambers like reddit that has been unhinged against Trump and his supporters. It is in fact the time and the place to condemn it and those excusing it. Holding people who do that accountable is a good thing, while promoting a reaction that allows them to get away with excusing it, and attacks those who have a problem with it is a very wrongheaded approach. It is actually a good thing for pressure to exist against people of differing political groups behaving badly, focusing on the worst of them when they behave in the worst manner. And sure, it is important to not lose perspective, and neither exaggerate, nor downplay. This is a big deal, and there isn't an equivalence.
It is exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time to be doing to be promoting hypotheticals of bad right wingers to excuse and downplay any of this.
There was a poster here who promoted the scenario of Trump being the target of an assassination attempt and was widely criticized by many here. Have any of the people who done that willing to say mea culpa and accept that they were wrong?
There is a connection between the rhetoric promoted by various figures and media towards Trump, and it being more likely to lead to unhinged people to consider assassinating him. And also a connection between taking that threat seriously and try to suppress people and media of such rhetoric and condemn this, with acknowledging the problem and the risks it represents.
Taking seriously the genuine problem of anti right wing and anti trump extremism, it something that should have happened previously. But it becomes obvious now that there needs to be stronger condemnation and a serious desire and attempt to suppress this extremism.
The superpalable foods and people overeating is the best theory and the truth because it fits available evidence. It is also the main scientific theory.
Also fat people genuinely have less willpower to resist overeating because they have greater appetite.
It is EASIER to stay thin that to become thin after becoming obese. But it isnt impossible and there are other societal problems too due to a culture of less discipline.
So, outside of ozembic, the best intervention would have been to try to stop people from becoming fat in the first place, focusing more on ingraining the right habits to children and target the food culture.
The reality a lot of people go along with what is the default. The default changed for whatever reason (because people like eating tasty food with calories, and because people selling food like making more money over people consuming more food being a big reason, and such food became more available and cheaper), and then obesity increased and as it increased it became more acceptable and people mimicked each other.
Now, sure people don't like the results of being fat, but they do like eating in the way that makes them fat, and there is copying of each other. This conformism and copying others habits then leads to escalation of trends. If there is a rising trend to overeat, people increasingly overeat.
Discipline is not everything about it, because a facet of it is careless overeating due to the rise of hyperpalable food. At some point of making mistakes of judgement, it does require more discipline to get out of it. But the level of discipline in the initial stage would be less, and less so if the default food culture was less obesogenic with less high calorie hyperpalable foods around.
Fundamentally, there is a trend in general, not talking about motte specifically, of people talking about such issues who don't want to do something about it. Obviously you are going to have rising drug abuse, obesity, crime epidemic, or other problems (i.e. cultural far leftism, putting such groups on pedestal), if you promote that such issues are unsolvable mysteries, and exaggerate the difficulty and the harm of doing something about it. Same even with fertility issue. Modernity has come along with some problems which do have their difficulties, and also simultaneously there is an ideological trend which is part of the problem which exaggerates the difficulty of solving them, and is in fact against trying to do so.
According to Andrew Torba of Gab he posted on Gab arguing in favor of Biden/Democrats on various issues such as migration and mandates.
https://caldronpool.com/fbi-forced-to-backtrack-gab-account-suggests-trump-shooter-was-biden-supporter/
And here is Elon Musk responding to it: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1818340245139554333
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