Cirrus
3mo ago
Okay, I’ll be the one to bite the bullet and speak plainly. Baltimore is a majority-black city, has been for decades now. In that link I cited above (from the Baltimore City Planner’s Office, no less), the announcement states that the city “is growing browner” and has not only a declining population from 2010 to 2020, but also a declining white population, from 32% in 2000 to 28% in 2020.
You made a very good write-up and I enjoyed reading it. However, curiously absent from your discussion was the topic of race. You didn’t mention the races of anyone in your write-up. Certainly Baltimore’s majority-minority demographics are a unique trait for this city compared to most places in the United States. Do you think that the city’s multi-racial aspect has anything to do with its problems? As you describe things, Baltimore seems like a very low-trust, corrupt, impoverished “shithole”. Do you think that’s because of how many non-whites (and particularly the proportion of blacks and mixed-race people) there are who live there?
Cirrus
3mo ago
Germans care particularly about maintaining the integrity of NATO and the European Union. Trump, if not explicitly anti-NATO, at least wants its members to “pay their fair share” regarding military expenditures. And Trump appears more conciliatory towards Russia, which still poses an economic/geopolitical threat in the minds of many pro-EU Europeans. Harris, on the other hand, represents more of the same for Germans: an easier, more prosperous life nestled under the pax-Americana security blanket, where Americans pay for your defense and guarantee your freedom so you can use more of your money on butter, not guns.
Why wouldn’t a German vote for Harris over Trump, given that choice??
Cirrus
5mo ago
His personality is enough to ruin him. The Establishment wants defense in depth. It’s easier to defend your way of doing things when the Schelling point is based on personalities, rather than policies.
If the Establishment didn’t do everything it could to destroy Trump and make an example out of him, then there could be a future Trump who goes a bit further. Someone with Trump’s appeal but who could also seriously change policy and the way things are done.
It’s the same reason why progressives have ratcheted up the social movement lunacy to defend pedophiles (as MAPs) and transgenders. When all of the oxygen in the room is being sucked on these topics, it means that people aren’t challenging gay marriage (which was a controversial topic only 12 years ago). Gay marriage is effectively off-limits until the pedo-question is settled, so progressives have an incentive to waste people’s time on pedophiles so that they aren’t having to defend gays. Even though it’s a harder assignment defending pedophiles rather than gays.
Cirrus
5mo ago
Nothing ever happens. Old, fat, Fox News-watching boomers will grunt and groan for a while but people will gradually forget about Trump. The Deep State will triumph and after Trump eventually dies a Nikki Haley-type figure will return the GOP to its blissful days of corporatist, Reaganite neoconservatism.
The only time something happens is when the economy collapses. Politics like this is just a sideshow. Keep your eyes open wide when the Dow Jones goes down to 25,000, when the unemployment rate hits 8 percent, or when housing prices drop by 40 percent. The Dow is down by about 2,000 points from its all-time high in the past several days.
Cirrus
7mo ago
I sincerely doubt anything is going to happen in 2024. The powers that be (TPTB — the PMC elites) simply don’t want anything to disrupt Biden’s chances of winning a comfy re-election. So nothing will happen. “It’s the economy, stupid” all the way down. Don’t be surprised to see the DOW approach 45000 and the S&P 500 approach 6000 this year. As long as Number Go Up, the typical voter will allow any demented meat puppet (Biden) to remain in office.
You point out 2008 and 2020. Those were the last two election years involving a Republican presidential incumbent. TPTB wanted to change to a PMC Democrat, as part of the long-term, Davos-approved plan for managed decline in the West. So, lo and behold, we got the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 (talk about a September/October surprise!) and we got COVID Floyd in 2020. TPTB overestimated its chances against Trump (as well as Brexit) in 2016, and 2012 was a rare election when TPTB would have been satisfied with Romney as much as Obama.
Cirrus
9mo ago
Age limits for Congress and/or the Presidency. It’s simple to understand and therefore could have a popular groundswell of support. The Constitution already has age minimums for these elected offices. Public opinion polling shows that a majority of Americans are fatigued of old people like Trump and Biden running the show, so there could be bipartisan support. State legislatures already have age limits for certain other privileges such as obtaining a driver’s license (or needing to retake a driving test at a certain age). I could definitely see this happening especially in the next few years.
Cirrus
10mo ago
Donald Trump will be 82 years old in 2028 and Joe Biden will be 86 years old, assuming that they are both still alive by then. For comparison’s sake, Leonid Brezhnev died in office as General Secretary of the USSR Communist Party at age 75. His successor, Yuri Andropov, died at age 69. He was followed in the 1980s by Constantin Chernenko who died in office at age 73.
Some historians argue that the Soviet’s gerontocracy contributed to that country’s demise, as older, risk-averse leaders left their nations brittle and unprepared for change. The trend of elderly leaders changed, as you all know, with Mikhail Gorbachev (aged 54 when he took office in 1985), youthful by comparison. He was the first such leader to actually grow up his whole life in the USSR. He was a true believer, having been a party functionary since his youth. He genuinely believed that his proposals—perestroika and glasnost—would strengthen the state for years to come. He reflected the naive mindset that bought the Helsinki Accords hook, line, and sinker.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to compare those Accords with modern-day Wokism currently afflicting Western European culture. The older generation of leaders will roll their eyes. But they signed on to it. The next batch of younger idealist leaders—the Gorbachevs of our future—will take Wokism seriously to the detriment of our national integrity.
Expect woke-sympathetic Western leaders to act with indecision (or even create the groundwork for a national fracturing) when racial unrest in our new multi-racial societies boils over. Our future leaders will be expected to cash the checks that today’s elderly statesmen are writing. Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be long gone, but the culture of wokism will linger with us for a generation to come.
Cirrus
10mo ago
AMEN!! No matter what the LEGACY MEDIA tells you, real American PATRIOTS stand up and let their FAITH in GOD be known to all! White black or otherwise, we are ALL children of GOD on this blessed day!!!
~ Mrs. Cirrus
Sent from my iPad
Cirrus
11mo ago
Quality contribution! You’re absolutely right. Jesus was compassionate but also discerning. He didn’t naively just stand there and let his religious enemies stone him to death, but he actively engaged in dialogue with them and revealed their hypocrisies.
I don’t know much about Ayaan Hirsi Ali but I’m willing to be charitable to her searching for the truth in Christ. Her ‘road to Damascus’ event may be sincerely in her future. Let’s pray that her heart be softened and receptive to the word.
Cirrus
11mo ago
Sorry, but I don’t resonate with this at all. I think I used to, but it seems like you’re just giving up. It’s sad to hear that your family is so polarized, but there are plenty of things that can bring family together for the holidays without getting mired in politics. I don’t agree at all politically, spiritually, culturally with certain close members of my family, but we have Thanksgiving and/or Christmas together every year and do things to enjoy each other’s company. We never discuss politics. We don’t have to!
The reason conservatives like to grill is because conservatives won on almost everything of consequence in the 20th century. Income tax rates have never been lower. Obamacare was effectively a subsidy for large health insurance corporations—far from single payer that progressives really want. Has Biden even uttered the phrase ‘Medicare for All’ this decade? Maybe he’s too busy crushing union strikes in Michigan to notice? Unrestricted immigration continues to depress low-skilled wages. It is basically impossible to criticize military spending in Congress, aside from gadflies on the populist right. The hourly federal minimum wage remains at $7.25. We have had basically no financial regulatory overhauls since 2010. The federal student loan payment moratorium is over. The ghost of Ronald Reagan reigns supreme in both the Republican and Democratic parties. There is no economic ‘Left’ in America anymore. What progressives seem to care most about is whether enough transgender minorities serve on the Boards at Citigroup or ExxonMobil. Progressives are totally defanged in the United States. What would Huey Long or Teddy Roosevelt think if they were transported in time and looked on at the progressive movement as it exists today?
So boomers will continue to grill, because tax rates are low, real estate prices are high, and their retirement portfolio continues to rise in value. Only once their personal comfort is threatened might they get activated. But as a merchant, commercial nation, the US has so much more left to fall before the pendulum shifts back to conservatism. It’s incredible how much wealthier and more economically prosperous the US is compared to the rest of the world, for a country of its size. People will put up with any godless cultural abomination if they are fat and entertained!
You want an institution that isn’t dominated by progressives? Try your local evangelical, non-denominational church. By all means, move out of the godforsaken downtown area of your city. But moving to another state won’t stop the rot, because the rot will follow you eventually. Join a church, tithe, volunteer, and put your faith not in a political party or economic system but in God, who restores all things.
Cirrus
11mo ago
Okay, I’ll bite the bullet here. There’s plenty of evidence to support that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he rose from the dead. For the benefit of others here who might read this…
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Jesus Christ was (to my knowledge) the only founder of a major world religion who claimed to be the son of God. He was put to death not because he performed miracles but because he made this claim. Why would someone make such an outrageous lie if it meant their death? Jesus Christ was not merely a good moral teacher, he claimed to be the son of God so those who admire his virtuosity (but not his divinity) will have to answer to why they admire a liar.
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Jesus Christ fulfilled many prophesies written by people hundreds of years before he lived. Many of these prophesies, as well as the account of Jesus’ acts, are verifiable by eyewitness accounts (reproduced in thousands of manuscript segments carefully copied and preserved over thousands of years). There is more scripture authenticated and verified from the New Testament than texts of many Ancient Greek philosophers whose authenticity is never questioned as rigorously. The letters of the New Testament have been subjected to lexical analysis and found to be internally consistent by author and authentic. There are no contradictions in the Bible, unlike the contradictions inherent in other belief systems such as transgenderism.
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Jesus Christ rose from the dead—he was observed by over 500 people over a 40 day period after his resurrection. His empty tomb was first discovered by women—not the most credible source in ancient times if you wanted to fabricate a story. We know that he died because the Roman soldiers punctured his side and drew blood after the crucifixion, a mortal wound that the soldiers had believed was conclusive.
I could go into more detail, but belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God, who died and rose again has a lot of rational merit. There is ample evidence to support this belief, but it isn’t proof so ultimately you must choose whether to believe it or not.
Cirrus
1yr ago
I have worked in a federal government agency for about ten years which employs over 5,000 people. It is possible to strongarm policymakers with enough political will. But it’s not easy. This is how you might do it within one presidential administration:
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Identify those individuals in charge of policymaking within the agency. At my agency it’s a small department within a small division, constituting about 25 people. Fire them all. Also, fire every high-ranking attorney in each of the major offices as well as headquarters. This would be another 50-100 people. Don’t fire the executive leadership—they got there because they follow orders well. All you need to do is rewrite the orders and they might grumble but they know well how to fall in line.
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Immediately abolish the public sector union associated with the agency. Do not negotiate, strip employees of all collective bargaining rights and grievance processes. Every single federal government agency’s union is captured by the PMC Left. The only exception is perhaps for those representing law enforcement and border patrol, because those are Red Tribe heavy. (I suspect this is why some people want to reclassify agency employees as contractors.) The unions have long been captured, they must be destroyed.
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Loosen hiring procedures to de-emphasize college degrees as a requirement to apply for federal government jobs. These are just credentials designed to benefit academia, which is also hopelessly captured by the PMC Left. Do this on day one. After four years the effects on employee hiring and attrition will be evident.
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Identify all agency employees who have ever donated to establishment Democratic or Republican political campaigns. Fire them all. Thankfully it’s easy to do this courtesy of the FEC and ActBlue and other PACs that publish donor information no matter how small.
I can attest that more federal government employees than you think are Republicans, perhaps even conservative/MAGA types. Problem is they don’t hold the power. A lot of it depends on where the agency offices are located. People who work in DC are much more likely to be Blue Tribe than people who work in Texas. That’s why the Trump administration briefly floated the idea of relocating headquarter offices outside the DC beltway. The power centers of these agencies—the headquarters—are in DC, and it takes a certain kind of slug bureaucrat to live in DC or choose to work there. Move the headquarters to Billings or Pensacola or Nashville and you’ll get a different crop of loyalists for sure.
Cirrus
1yr ago
One important difference today might be the lower percentage of young Americans eligible for military service. 77 percent of Americans age 17-24 can’t hack it, an increase from 71 percent six years ago.
Cirrus
1yr ago
But again, depressives, people dealing with extreme loneliness etc have always killed themselves at disproportionate rates, I don’t consider it morally abhorrent to ease their pain more painlessly.
As someone who has suffered from bouts of depression and loneliness in my life, I’m glad that I had people around me who cared enough to check in and look after me. They didn’t simply refer me to a government euthanasia program. That would be morally abhorrent. I hope you would never suggest that to one of your own friends or family members.
Cirrus
1yr ago
All this to say: What the fuck do we do about the fact that owning shit and renting shit is just flat out better in every way than doing shit or making shit?
I don’t know about that. Society runs thanks to the people doing and making things, not from the people who passively own. Life without work is a dull and meaningless existence. Identity is formed by what you leave behind. You can’t take that wealth with you into the afterlife. I suspect that’s why limousine liberals adopt some kind of pet social cause that occupies their time and gives their lives a purpose.
I had a similar feeling when I (an American) visited Spain several years ago. The old wealth was encrusted in the architecture. Buildings, hundreds of years old, that draw millions of tourists in popular town centers. The people who maintain them are like caretakers. They didn’t build them. They never met or talked to those who did. They live in the shadow of their own history. Unable to build anything of their own because all the land is developed already. I would rather scratch and claw my way to a meaningful living, having known that I left my mark in the dirt.
Cirrus
1yr ago
Gaetz is personally very shady even by Florida politician standards
Can you explain, please? Gaetz was never charged in that sex trafficking probe a couple of years ago, and indeed the Justice Department’s main informant was himself sentenced to 11 years in prison for those crimes alleged against Gaetz.
Is that what makes him shady—being accused of a crime and then subsequently cleared of it? Or that the House Ethics Committee is taking another bite at the same apple following his opposition to the House leadership?
Seems more like the uniparty wants people to believe he’s a shady character. We’ll see how the evidence shakes out, rather than innuendo.
Cirrus
1yr ago
Considering that Zelenskyy won the 2019 election in a landslide on a peace platform, committing to peace talks with the Russian separatists in Donbas, I wouldn’t call ‘following up on his campaign promises’ to be selling out the large majority who elected him for that purpose.
As John Mearsheimer has noted, it was only once Zelenskyy departed from his peace posture, sabotaged by NATO minion Boris Johnson in April 2022, that he no longer represented the wishes of the Ukrainian electorate and only then betrayed them.
Cirrus
1yr ago
Let’s not forget when then-Congressman Adam Kinzinger praised the totally 100% real heroism of the fighter ace the “Ghost of Kiev”. Or when NATO shrugged its collective shoulders when Ukraine fired a missile at Poland, blamed it on Russia and then lied about it even after contradicting evidence came to light.
Nobody in the West is acting seriously about this war anymore. The battle lines are frozen. Russia isn’t giving up territory it has annexed. Ukraine will be just another failed state, just another sacrifice made on the altar of neoliberal democracy.
Cirrus
1yr ago
Just to let you know, banks and other financial institutions are already required to obtain beneficial ownership information from their business clients. This rule by FinCEN merely places the government responsible for maintaining a centralized database of this information, and to relieve banks of the duty to collect the information themselves. (Although, the final rule TBD is a little murky on whether banks still have to collect the info as well).
Cirrus
1yr ago
Could be she’s angling for a possible Vice President nomination. Correct-thinking Latina governor in a border state? You may recall when Susana Martinez, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, was a serious VP contender for Mitt Romney, and she spoke at one of the RNC national conventions one year.
As far as the state being ‘left wing’, it really isn’t. Not in the Vermont/Bernie Sanders/Portlandia way. New Mexico has for some time been a majority-minority state. American Indians make up 11 percent of the state’s population, the third highest in the United States after Alaska and Oklahoma. The median household income in 2021 was on the level with Alabama, making it 45th out of 50 in the United States. To put it bluntly, the modal New Mexican citizen is a poor, lowly educated Hispano-Indian who correctly perceives the Democratic Party as the party of handouts. The state is about as far away from the Gray Tribe, Bay Area rationalists and the Sanders socialists as can be!
Cirrus
1yr ago
The idea that something at the beginning of time was unaffected by the rules of cause and effect is still plausible to me, but is there any reason left to assume it was sapient?
Sure, just read Genesis 1:27…
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And Hebrews 13:8…
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
And of course, there’s John 1:1-5…
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
If you hold the authority of the Bible to be true, which it is, then there’s ample evidence to believe in a living God that exists apart from time and is the creator of everything. His existence is beyond our comprehension, which takes a reasonable man with humility to appreciate. You want there to be a God. Of course! That’s because God has written himself into your/our hearts. From Romans 2:14-15…
For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them…
So why be depressed? Take joy in the fact that God exists, despite what one internet blogger claims in his own foolishness.
Cirrus
1yr ago
COVID policies were enacted at the state level, where (to hazard a guess) the governors were younger and more responsive to the threat than our elderly Congress. The only federal legislative response I can think of was the CARES Act in 2020. I would have preferred decisive action early in 2020 by Congress—even if wrongheaded—then to pivot quickly once we knew more about COVID. Instead, we got a lumbering, indecisive Congress afraid to take strong actions in an election year. Maybe Congress was too old to risk bold policy in the face of uncertainty. More cynically, maybe this was the point given the Democrat-controlled Congress and a Republican President.
I don’t know enough about the Korean War to comment about that, sorry.
Cirrus
1yr ago
The average age of a member of Congress is 59 years old, the oldest in modern history. The United States used to criticize the ‘gerontocracy’ of the Soviet Union of the 1970s-1980s, as Glen Greenwald points out here.
We have constitutional age minimums for elected office, so why not age maximums? I don’t trust our geriatric leadership to respond effectively to a real threat to the country. If we have to rely on their handlers instead, just now representative are our elected leaders? We need a ruling class that is virile, strong, responsive, and bold.
Cirrus
1yr ago
I disagree. You don’t have to be raised believing in gods and the supernatural (or such a culture). Even so, I don’t think anyone is truly an atheist, as David Foster Wallace said, “In the day to day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. Everybody worships.” We just call old gods by new, modern names that don’t sound supernatural.
Also, this assertion downplays the power of Jesus Christ to reach into someone’s life and soften their heart. To know Jesus is to know that He still performs miracles, today. Why can’t He quicken someone’s spirit and raise them from the (spiritual) grave if He wants?
Ezekiel 36:26-27 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
John 3:5-8 “Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
One thing assisting Musk would be twitter’s massive loss in value after he bought it, according to one recent, independent value estimate. You post unrealized gains or losses using the cost basis of the asset on acquisition. Will Musk get a tax break for the unrealized loss?
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