Frequent_Anybody2984
No bio...
User ID: 2655
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
That is a much better example.
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
Like, yeah, Hanukah wasn't previously a major Jewish Holiday? And now it is.
It's not though. And considering that Jews comprise only about 1.8% of the US population and live in only a few parts of the country, Hanukkah’s presence in America’s public square is clearly astroturfed. From a quick google search, only 38% of Israeli Jews think Hanukkah is one of the three most important Jewish holidays. And I'm willing to bet that number there is also inorganic due to American influence. If you asked that question 50 years ago, it would probably be significantly lower. Hanukkah isn’t even mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. It along with Kwanzaa (fake holiday) were memed into reality so "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" could become "Happy Holidays".
I know that but does the average Christian? I'd be willing to bet church attendance is higher on Christmas.
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
Is it? I think many Christians would say otherwise. Christianity isn't like Judaism where Rabbis can make these decisions for people, especially Protestants.
Literally the second most important Holiday for the Christian goys
Edit: I should have said second most widely celebrated
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
I'm an agnostic so I'm not particularly concerned with Christianity. I'll put it simply. There is no such thing as "the holidays". So any direct call to name it "the holidays" is a direct attack on Christianity by its definition. Christmas is more or less a secular holiday at this point, so attacking Christmas underlies an anti-Christian worldview since the average non-Christian is fine celebrating Christmas. The only person that would care about this from the anti-Christmas perspective is one who is against Christianity having any public rituals or any role in society.
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
Back when I was a smug liberal, I used to make fun of FOX News for saying there was a war on Christmas. And in my defense, FOX and Conservatives did a terrible job of making their case (which will become clear later why). I was recently shocked to learn that Hanukkah isn't even an important Jewish holiday. From WaPo :
It's easy to get the impression that Hanukkah is a marquee event of the Jewish year, falling as it coincidentally does right around the time of that other blockbuster December occasion and likewise seeming to revolve around presents, parties and recollections of a miracle long ago. The sense of Hanukkah's importance is further stoked by lively decorations, beautiful menorahs, delectable feasts and even, nowadays, kitschy sweaters and tongue-in-cheek competitions.
But as any rabbi would be quick to explain, Hanukkah is one of the least important occasions on the Hebrew calendar. Unlike major holidays such as Passover, Sukkot and the weekly Sabbath — all of which include extensive ritual requirements as well as prohibitions against work — Hanukkah is categorized as a minor festival whose only real decree is to light candles for eight nights. Everything else is custom or adaptation.
It seems pretty clear that the only reason Hanukkah is even celebrated like an important holiday in Christian countries is because it is close on the calendar to Christmas. From that same article:
That's not to say, however, that all the hubbub around Hanukkah is accidental. Its elevation to its current status in the United States goes back to the 19th century, when rabbis concerned about Jewish children feeling envious of their Christian neighbors realized that Hanukkah could let kids indulge in a joyous occasion around the same time of year. As Jewish historian Dianne Ashton recounts in her book "Hanukkah in America," the holiday's "timing in the midst of the Christmas season offered a way [for people] to perform their Jewish commitment through the holiday's rite and, for a moment, to resolve the ambiguity of being an American Jew."
The of course there is Kwanzaa, which is a made up holiday by Black Activists and the New Left in the 1960's. It literally wasn't even celebrated until 1966. It is a straight up made up holiday that shouldn't even be mentioned alongside Christmas and Hanukkah. I know this is not charitable but to me this is trivially true. I have never seen a single person celebrate Kwanzaa in my entire life and I am in my early 30's and have lived in cities with large black populations. So we can throw out Kwanzaa without any consideration.
That brings us back to Hanukkah, which again, is not an important Jewish holiday. This would be like if Christians in Israel started demanding if a minor random Christian holiday near Passover be given equal standing to their most important holiday. Obviously this is absurd on its face and would never be taken seriously.
I don't want to blame this on "da Jews" because secular gentiles played a role in this as well. In fact, they were probably the biggest drivers of this because I actually know many Jews who celebrate Christmas (more on this later). The argument that they would make is that they want to say "Happy Holidays" is because if you make Christmas a big deal it makes non-Christians uncomfortable. This would be one thing if it was still a very Christian holiday, but the bottom line is that Christmas is pretty much a secular holiday at this point that anyone can celebrate. To give some context for this. the Bay Area town I grew up in had a street that was famous for having an amazing Christmas lights celebration. People would come from all over to see the cool Christmas lights people on this street put up. This area also had a huge Indian population and about a third of the street was Indian by the time I moved. Instead of getting butt hurt about it, they kept up the tradition. Some even incorporated some Indian culture into theirs to make it look pretty cool and unique. Plus, a lot of Jews I know celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday and don't seem to have any problem with it. So I don't see how anyone could make a credible argument that as long as it's just Santa and basic benign Christian decorations that it makes anyone feel uncomfortable. But this is all subjective.
The number one reason why it is ridiculous to say "Happy Holidays" though is that there are literally no other holidays that are important during that time period for any major ethnic or religious group in the US. If it wasn't for Christmas, it would literally not be the "holiday season". It would just be a time close to New Years. There is no reason to say "Happy Holidays" other than to diminish the role of Christianity, even in its most benign and secular form, in the United States. In my opinion, Left wing activists used identity politics (Kwanzaa), "inclusivity", and guilt about the Holocaust and Jews (Hanukkah) to make up a fake "holiday season" so it wouldn't be the Christmas Season anymore. I'd love to see someone counter this, because I really don't see how this isn't more or less 100% true.
And I actually have a much better post I'm working on now about how academia and first wave feminism conspired to create the fake Wicca religion and the modern idea of witches. And if you want a taste, here is a good summary that inspired me: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7tz-PBkF720&ab_channel=GreshamCollege
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
Left wing violence was pretty common until the 1980's in the US, even by privileged Ivy League proto-SJWs like the Weathermen. I just don't think leftists in the US are very violent now for whatever reason (I have my theories). The Silent Generation and the Boomers were the last generations that had real left wing radicals committing violence and trying to overthrow the government.
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
You can like them without wanting to import tens of millions of them to your country and all their third world problems like this: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20211015-france-honours-quiet-hero-teacher-killed-for-showing-prophet-mohammed-cartoon
Even the most annoying SJW Ivy-League grad isn't killing people over cartoons.
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
Of course, but that's why it's such a ridiculous concept in the first place. Objective measures like overhead and percent given to a cause etc are good to track, but whether or not it's a "good" cause is completely subjective so what they are really doing is just funneling money to causes they support, which is more or less what everyone else does.
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
most effective
By whose standards?
I couldn't agree more. Bay Area Rationalists remind me of this meme when it comes to naming things: https://img.ifunny.co/images/e5402c3312546aa012fd661f686af8fd58cb8158d29db92ac5f0f1e3617bfa12_1.webp
The whole name Rationalists rubs me the wrong way for a variety of reasons. It comes off to me like they think they have a monopoly on Rationality, and reading LessWrong hasn't changed my mind. Almost everyone thinks they are being rational.
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
I'm sorry, but that's just straight up not true. The US doesn't have a system where people can vote on issues straight up, but when they have been given the chance, they have voted against illegal immigration. See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_California_Proposition_187
Within days, the deep state shut it down. Just like Trump's Muslim ban by some judge in Hawaii or his wall. It is literally impossible to stop illegal immigration democratically in the United States. If it was possible, it would have ended by now.
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
They could stop illegal immigration if they wanted to though. This isn't some impossible task. There just isn't political will among the elites. Pakistan deported over a million Afghans: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistans-plan-expel-over-1-million-afghans-living-country-illegally-2023-10-31/
Are you trying to tell me the US couldn't do this if they wanted to? The government just doesn't want to for [insert reason here]. You didn't agree with mine, which is fine, but I hope you don't think the US actually couldn't if there was the political will.
And I mean they kind or are Machiavellian manipulators, considering it's an extremely unpopular thing politically yet they've managed to let mass immigration go on for over 4 decades, completely reshaping the demographics permanently of this country. Trump got elected to finally do something about it, and he was unable to do anything to curb it. Part of that is on Trump's incompetence, but more of it is that very powerful people and institutions resisted and thwarted him every time.
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
Polls for decades have shown that Americans are very against illegal immigration, but we only have two parties and neither will do anything about it. They finally voted in Trump and they pulled out all the stops. He tries to limit Muslim immigration and some judge in Hawaii shuts it down. He doesn't get his wall either. The fact is there is nothing Americans can do to stop illegal and mass immigration short of a coup. I'm not saying that to fed post, but just using common sense. How else could Americans stop illegal immigration if elected officials, the media, and the deep state prevent anyone from really doing anything about it?
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
Yeah but the rest of the world isn't the leader of the free world. America's narrative is that it is spreading freedom and democracy and human rights. If the border starts looking like the Gaza Strip, homeless people are being carted off to prison etc. you'd see foreign governments take advantage of that. The global elites are more or less in agreement on this issue of immigration too and I think actually truly believe it, so they aren't going to change. They'd be embarrassed among their peers, which I think they care about more than what voters and their fellow countrymen think. The only way to change it would be to replace it with people who are America First i.e. don't care about the U.N. or Western Europe or NGO's opinions. Plus they'd have to tell a bunch of legal organizations to get fucked (foreign and domestic). It would be a massive endeavor.
I do agree that home front is also a problem. Leftists would be agitating and you'd see newspapers like the Guardian crying about it from day one and trying to get sympathy for migrants. You'd either have to have discredited these organizations so much that nobody cares what they think, or straight up jail and beat them into submission. Then you'd also have to have a population that is okay with that as well. Because right now, as soon someone comes into enforce the law, every left wing newspaper in America is going to be talking about kids in cages and people dying at the border with AOC photo ops. It would have to be a whole paradigm shift that is really unreasonable to expect unless something extraordinary happens.
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
I think the only reason the US doesn't do what it needs to do about the border is because doing what it takes to actually solve the border crisis would make America look bad in international affairs. Russia and China would have tons of propaganda pictures and stories about how horrible the US is, and the left wing press in the US would be happy to help. The empire and securing global markets is what is most important to American elites, and illegal migration just isn't a huge issue to people who can afford to live in nice areas and send their kids to good schools. The only way to stop illegal immigration would be to replace the entire US government with people that don't give a shit if securing the border makes them look bad and hurts the US's standing abroad. They'd just tell other government to fuck off if they tried criticizing them about it and jail leftists who try to stir up shit domestically. But we don't live in that world so nothing can reasonably be done about it.
Frequent_Anybody2984
11mo ago
I saw a famous historian, I forget his name, describe him as the most competent person in history. I don't know if that's true, but he has to be at the top of the list. He was absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately for him, even the smartest person in the world can't conquer everyone and he was eventually defeated. He was probably also inevitable considering how out of touch and anachronistic the Old regime was in France. He ushered in a new world that probably wasn't upended until WW1. He was an absolute Chad.
I feel like we are due for a Napoleon in America because there is a bunch of old things that need to be discarded and only a brilliant Chad type person can bring this new world forward.
Frequent_Anybody2984
1yr ago
Senior OpenAI leaders, including Mr. Sutskever, who is deeply concerned that A.I. could one day destroy humanity
These people are so weird. They are obsessed with making something they think will destroy the world. Just build AI or don't. If AI is so dangerous, nothing you can do will really stop it in the long run. Eventually, over hundreds or even thousands of years, the inevitable will happen. I feel like this is almost a religion for them and they are the absolute worst people to be in charge or this kind of technology.
Frequent_Anybody2984
1yr ago
Because a bunch of European countries blame themselves when Muslims don't like them or don't integrate or kills hundreds of their fellow citizens in terrorist attacks.
Frequent_Anybody2984
1yr ago
You're cherry picking that from their site. I could find a bunch of other posts on there from them that paint them as rabid Zionists. The ADL are huge hypocrites after all. Posts like this are just so they can't be pinned down and people can go see they made this post (that nobody read and wasn't intended to be read). But let's be honest, they have spent a million times as much money and effort attacking Musk these past few years publicly than they ever have in their entire history for Israel. This is also a left/wing Jew/Israel culture war battle. They don't like Netenyahu or Likud. But make no mistake, if you go criticizing Israel publicly and aggressively, the ADL will come for you to smear your character no matter how good your points are and how good your intentions are.
Frequent_Anybody2984
1yr ago
The alt-right and wignat claim that groups like the ADL are huge hypocrites that support diversity in Western countries but ethno nationalism in Israel is obviously true. It an't even be debated in my opinion. Before they could just call the people pointing this out Nazis (because they were), but now people are seeing Israel for what it actually is and the new people calling it out can't just be dismissed as Nazis so they are being exposed for the hypocrites they are. You can't call all the black people, Muslims, SJWs, LGBTQ+ groups, etc. Nazis when they were on your side the past 8 years fighting white nationalism and Trump or whatever they were up to. Then when they have an apartheid state that kills children and has an open air prison for Palestinians (not saying that's what I believe, but left wing activists do) then the Holocaust sympathy dries up real quick. They know they are in a tough place and this is probably what they have stopped messing with Musk publicly.
Frequent_Anybody2984
1yr ago
I would actually agree with you here for the most part. Persians also aren't Arabs though so have a very different culture.
Frequent_Anybody2984
1yr ago
Are you talking LA style Persians who fled after the Shah was deposed, many of whom are actually Jews?
This is not remotely the same thing. We're not just talking about days off, but the culture at large. This is iconoclasm.
More options
Context Copy link