Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
Disabled Alaskan Monarchist doomer
User ID: 2666
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2mo ago
The focus should be on enticing those with 1 child to have 3, and those with 2 to have 4 or 5.
Recently, on a podcast interview discussing this issue, the interviewee gave the statistic that back in the 80s, the average number of children per mother (note, not per woman, per mother) was 2.5. Now, that same figure is at… 2.6. I also recall reading, elsewhere, that the average number of children per mother did not actually rise much during the Baby Boom — it was pretty much entirely a "marriage boom."
In all cases, the issue seems to be getting not from 1 to 3 or 2 to 4, but from 0 to 1.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2mo ago
There's also a recent Christian sect -- let's call it what it is, it's a cult -- called the Iglesia ni Cristo, which outright rejects the depiction of the cross
There's an even newer one out of Mexico, La Luz del Mundo, with a similar policy of rejection.
I'm aware of them because of the highly visible (closed) church they built in my neighborhood.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2mo ago
Given what happened in Pennsylvania, how well will the Secret Service be able (or should that be "willing"?) to protect Donald Trump if (when) he's sent to Rikers Island next month?
So, I'm old enough to remember, back in the Clinton years, the media scaremongering about "right-wing militia groups." Well, it's my understanding that this is entirely fake; right-wing militias don't actually exist, and every group that is purported to be one is actually either:
- A small group of aging, out-of-shape men who get together a couple times a year to fire off some guns and drink some beer (more the latter than the former)
- A Fed honeypot operation.
But, I've had some people, including a couple on this forum, assure me that I'm wrong and that "real" right-wing militias actually exist.
So, assuming they're correct, how does one find one of these groups?
Edit: so I note that /u/hydroacetylene was the only one who actually tried to answer the question (even if the example he gives is a Fed honeypot) rather than handwave at groups past, or opine about what "real" means in this context — and that answer was: you don't find them, they find you.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2mo ago
’m not sure who said it but I’ve always found this amusing; “A misogynist is just a person who hates women as much as women do.”
I've generally seen it attributed to H. L. Mencken:
Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2mo ago
substitute a competent assassin
Random citizens are not "competent assassins." And for that matter, I'm not sure how much "competent assassin" is even a thing. I don't remember where I read it (as usual), but I recall reading about how on the one hand, it's not easy for a protection detail to stop a determined assassin with no concern for his own survival, but, on the other hand, any assassin who makes plans to try to get away alive is pretty much guaranteed to fail at hitting their target.
Now, the fact that the bureaucrats (at least initially) won't have a protection detail will change this a bit. But still, the odds of getaway remain very slim.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2mo ago
Was McVeigh really that much of an outlier?
Yes, and his sort even more so in the decades since.
I think living conditions could easily get bad enough that people no longer have much to lose.
Perhaps, but not particularly soon, and as times get more desperate, people tend to get less cooperative as they compete with one another to maintain their slice of the shrinking metaphorical pie.
Really all that needs to happen is that people get their friends and family killed, raped or immiserated with no recourse.
I think Nybbler answered this one pretty well.
As mentionned elsewhere in this thread, the Feds have been smart enough to avoid escalating in such conditions since Waco
McVeigh had very little to do with the lack of further Wacos. Nor is it due to any unwillingness or incapacity on the part of the government. It is my understanding that the local cops had several opportunities to arrest Koresh and other leading Branch Davidians, and indeed wanted to do so, but were specifically told not to by the feds, who wanted to sweep up the entire group in a single big operation that Janet Reno could show off in the media, and the FBI and ATF could use to justify their big budgets and fancy toys.
But then it went wrong. So, now, they don't bother doing it that way. Instead, they let the local cops pick off leadership as soon as possible.
The reason you don't see any more Waco-type incidents isn't because the government can't deal with groups like the Branch Davidians, it's because they've gotten so good at nipping such groups in the bud long before they ever reach the "armed compound" stage, in ways that don't grab mass media attention.
It's not a sign of their weakness, but a sign of their strength.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
Sympathetic nutjobs(all of whom are heavily into the 2nd amendment) resisting will trigger more resistance-
That's not what I see from the right wing red tribe people I know IRL (i.e. my family and most friends), nor from similar people online (see for example commenters at Sarah Hoyt's blog). Instead I see denunciations of anyone who shoots as cops as automatically losing any and all sympathy, because you Just Don't Do That Ever, with the one and only exception of gun confiscation. If they're not taking your guns, you don't resist. Ever. And anyone who does resist our Boys in Blue is automatically thereby a Criminal Scumbag Who Deserves What They Get.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
I've read that piece before, and I think our @KulakRevolt both overestimates the ease of assassination government officials — and the willingness of sane, non-suicidal people to attempt it, given the negligible odds of getting away with it — and underestimates the willingness of our officials to bear the risk (which, again, is lower than he thinks).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
Battle of Athens,
Several generations ago, and well before the NSA began watching veterans' groups as closely as they do now.
Bundy Standoff
Did anybody on the Bundy side ever actually fire a shot?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
No, you're going to need a lot more people. Because our sniper might be able to successfully pick off one of the faceless bureaucrats… but his odds of getting away alive and free to try again with another are very, very small. So you're going to need someone else to pick up where he left off… and then another to follow after him… and then another…
And like @RobertLiguori noted above, only "the barest fraction" are even going to do anything other than meekly submit. And after the first dozen snipers all end up arrested or dead, while the bureaucrats they picked off are replaced, with no real change in the mechanisms of tyranny (beyond further crackdowns and tightening security), how many are really going to want to follow suit?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
The 90s assault weapons ban sunsetting seems like an obvious example. They definitely wanted to keep it, and we definitely killed it. Likewise holding the line on bump stocks and braces. But the framing of your question elides much more significant advances: normalization and proliferation of concealed carry, suppressors, automatic weapons, the standardization of the AR-15, 3d-printing and DIY tech, and general cultural penetration are all monumental achievements that have greatly eroded the control landscape.
Notice, these are all guns rights victories. Which just, again, reinforces my point about how they can take away all your other rights without concern.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
The value is that the Second Amendment and the AR-15s it protects form a coordination mechanism for resistance to government overreach generally
I hear this narrative, and all I see is that you've concentrated everything into a singular highly-visible tripwire, and thereby given the enemy a roadmap for successful oppression. The assumption seems to be that any "slide into tyranny" must include, early in the chain, a mass confiscation of guns, and therefore, the time to engage in armed resistance to agents of the state is when they do that… and only ever when they do that.
But what if they don't?
If you'll only shoot when they violate your 2nd amendment rights, that means you won't when they take away your 1st, or 4th, or 5th, or…
The cops start searching homes and arresting people without warrants? Well, they're not taking away your 2nd amendment rights, so no resisting.
They begin arresting people for "hate speech"? Well, they're not confiscating your guns, so armed resistance is off the table, and you submit.
They shut down your church and forbid your faith? They haven't disarmed you yet, so it's not yet time for violence, and you submit.
They confiscate the contents of your bank accounts? Well, you've still got your guns, so you submit.
They begin sending people to jail without a trial or a lawyer? Well, they haven't taken your guns, so you submit.
They begin sending people to jail without a trial or a lawyer? Well, they haven't taken your guns, so you submit.
You've announced the one and only time they'll meet force, and thus, that they can enact every other bit of tyranny they want without ever having to worry about those guns. And thus, why would they ever need to worry about them?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
the tyrant
This points to a problem recently discussed by Auron MacIntyre: that the word "tyranny" generally conjures up in our minds rule by a singular tyrant; and thereby the impression that all that needs be done to guard against oppression is to prevent power from falling into any one person's hand's. But such individual concentration of power is not necessary (nor sufficient) for a government to become oppressive. As Hannah Arendt wrote in On Violence, bureaucracy can lead to "tyranny without a tyrant."
Snipers can shoot a singular "tyrant and their supporters," but when you're instead oppressed by tens of thousands of mostly-interchangeable near-anonymous bureaucrats with no clear, single leader, what then?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
ultra-orthodox and modern orthodox in America?
Just a note on (missing) context: it took me a moment to realize you were talking about Orthodox Jews, and not Eastern Orthodox Christians; it was ambiguous for me up until "Eastern European Ashkenazi."
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
unless we figured out a way to wriggle out of federal taxes and collect them ourselves.
Again, the idea isn't that the state "wriggles out of federal taxes" — it's that they keep paying them, and then collect the taxes for the now-defunded popular services themselves — your "parallel" system — on top of those taxes. Or else, yes, cut the programs.
So, it seems that you're saying that even for the red states with the best economies, the requisite "belt-tightening" necessary would simply be far more than most anyone is willing to endure (yet). Is that right?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
Dave Rubin's Don't Burn This Book. Mostly a familiar portrait of another "I didn't leave the Left, the Left left me" case, which once again illustrates that just because you've been kicked out for failing to keep up with the perpetual revolution, that doesn't actually make you "right wing." (Rubin drops the classic 'Nazis were actually from the left because socialist' argument, too, and at one point uses the phrase "the left's soft bigotry of low expectations.")
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
When it comes to the building of "parallel institutions" as a political strategy, what would a monarchist parallel institution in a modern, democratic society look like (other than either a 24/7 ren faire or a mafia syndicate)?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
The real question is 'can states which are net payers on some tax or other stop paying the tax when refusing federal dollars', to which the answer is likely no
My understanding was that the argument is to keep paying federal taxes while getting nothing back, and figuring out how to make it work through "parallel institutions" and "belt-tightening," though I imagine they were mainly thinking of right-leaning states with better economies than Alaska's.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
The country is pretty well mixed in geographically
What does that have to do with the risk of civil war? The American Civil War was actually rather unusual, as civil wars go, in its clear geographic lines. Many civil wars don't involve secession attempts.
Compare, for example, the English Civil War(s). Yes, there were some geographic gradients — northwest vs. southeast, but even more city-vs-countryside — but only partially; and, AIUI, the two sides were still "plenty well mixed in," at least initially. Another, more recent civil war of "city-vs-rural" character was the Nepali Civil War. Or try looking at maps of the decades-long conflict in Colombia.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
A large portion of how the US federal governments get states to enforce various national-level rules and standards (despite the anti-commandeering doctrine) is by threatening to withhold various federal funds. So, how hard would it be for a state to basically say “screw it” and try going without federal funds? Or a county (or similar) to try going without federal or state funds?
(I ask because this was a proposal put forth by Auron MacIntyre with one of his guests in a video (IIRC) last month as part of a broader discussion the need to build “parallel institutions.” It might just be that I’m living in a state with one of the worst economies in the US, and that I’m receiving something like ~$3k per month in various forms of federal and state aid (the single largest component being Medicaid covering my meds), but this doesn’t seem very plausible to me. (In the video, there was mostly some vague acknowledgements that it would require “belt-tightening,” and the closest Auron got to addressing the disabled was a comment about convincing people “you don’t need welfare, the church will provide.”))
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
Does anybody else feel like the Motte is their internet home?
Not me. Not really, anyway. It's just that I manage to get a bit more engagement and discussion here than in some of the more "comfortable" places I also frequent (Tumblr and the Dreaded Jim's blog, mostly).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
Maybe this is an entire genre of pizza joints.
And now I'm reminded of this Tumblr thread on hole-in-the-wall pizza joints as possible mob fronts. The OP:
kaijuno:
I went to this Sicilian pizza joint yesterday and it’s literally so underground and such a big hole in the wall that their parking lot is wrecked, their front door is bolted up, and you have to enter through the kitchen and walk to the front end past all the ovens and down a narrow ass hallway and then all the tables and chairs are fold ups and the ceiling is all saggy and it looks awful but fuck me it’s been there for 70+ years and makes the best damn thin crust pizza in the city and no one hardly knows about it because it looks like an abandoned building
And perhaps my favorite bit:
wretched-mog:
it’s true, i grew up in nj and you could tell how good the food was by how many insurance frauds the place did. one of my favorite pizza places in my home town staged an arson to collect on insurance money, the owner got caught tho
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3mo ago
What you punish you get less of, what you subsidize you get less of
That second "less" should be "more" instead, no?
I read this and think of my parents: Mom was fresh out of high school in the late 1970s when she married Dad, who is just two years older than her, and was already in the workforce (having dropped out of high school after 10th grade). Just a few years later, in the early 1980s, Mom pops me out a few weeks before her 22nd birthday; my first brother a year and a half later; and then my other brother, her youngest, just a couple of days after turning 26. And this family of 5 lived entirely off my Dad's handyman income, with Mom being a SAHM, and not entering the workforce proper until Youngest Brother was out of high school.
And this was just a few decades ago, not some ancient days of yore here. So really, I'd say the issue is simply the whole everyone-goes-to-college things. Is that bachelor's degree really necessary to do the job? If so, would it still be necessary if we hadn't devalued high school diplomas with "social promotion," grade inflation, and so on?
(Again, I keep coming back to how many of our problems would be solved if we got someone in power who went after Academia with an approach somewhere in the range from Henry VIII to Qin Shi Huang.)
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