Jiro
2d ago
Scott originally gave as an example "There isn’t enough Stalinism in this country!" There isn't enough leftism is an obvious extension.
Jiro
3d ago
It's supposed to be a completely facile pseudocriticism
I understand a 50 Stalins criticism to be that someone's positions aren't extreme enough and he should lean into them even more. Claiming that a Democrat is not left-wing enough would be a 50 Stalins criticism. (And likewise, something like "Trump isn't doing enough to stop illegal immigration" would be a 50 Stalins criticism of Trump.)
It's true that it would be dangerous to do this to actual Stalin, but that's not how the metaphor works.
This is someone obscure enough that I have never heard of them before you linked this,
It was the first one I found by googling that sounded good enough.
Jiro
3d ago
Manchin is actually quoted as saying he's doing this "not as a Democrat", and I think this counts as saying that the Tsar is poorly advised:
Manchin said he is a proud Democrat, having been raised with the values of “always reaching out, trying to help others have a better quality of life and help themselves” and taking care of those who cannot help themselves.
But he said sometimes his party’s priorities in Washington are “out of balance with … how we do business in West Virginia.”
Sanders is claiming that Obama isn't left wing enough, which is a 50 Stalins criticism. And it's not actually hard to find conservatives criticizing Trump.
Jiro
3d ago
Where was there criticism of Obama from Democrats that was not of the 50 Stalins variety?
Jiro
3d ago
If she's trying to find a husband, presumably the baby would be with her husband. That's not out of wedlock; that's in wedlock.
Jiro
3d ago
The hearing was supposed to be for expunging his commitment. People don't get committed for forgetting their medication. It's not supposed to be "is there anything wrong with him such that we don't want him to have a gun" even though the state used it that way.
The typical case is when someone neither particularly hates or helps the poor. But the missing mood test looks at how things are framed and at superficial elements. So if he thinks the dole is good for the poor, he doesn't need to prove himself, because the belief itself already says that he "wants to help the poor". But if he thinks the dole is bad for the poor, he faces an uphill battle. The problems with this are obvious.
This also leads to moral busybodies. How exactly do you know that someone hates the poor privately? Well, if he's a friend or relative, maybe you know him. But if he's a politician or someone else you don't know personally, this is an incentive to dig up ten year old Twitter posts out of context to "prove" that he's cruel so you can dismiss his beliefs.
And then there's the situation where someone who thinks some policy harms themselves always fails the missing mood test. After all, they aren't showing concern for the other people who are helped by the things that harm themselves. (And "I think my harm is more important than someone's benefit" is selfish, so it doesn't count as showing concern even if you acknowledge that someone benefits.)
Jiro
7d ago
Fuente's obsession with Israel appeared to result in what is perhaps the most accurate prediction of the series of events following Oct. 7th among anyone else.
They're still not accurate. You snuck in there "enables Israel to finally solve the Gaza Question with ethnic cleansing" as a "successful" prediction. It's actually a failed prediction.
"Knowingly" and "will give Israel an excuse to" are not successful predictions either, unless you can read minds.
Jiro
8d ago
If they're lower in cognitive ability they aren't similarly situated. And if they have a different major they certainly aren't.
Jiro
8d ago
How could that happen without massive disparate impact lawsuits? (Unless they're not really similarly situated--different cities, different professions chosen, etc.)
Jiro
8d ago
He would simply point out that there is no example in history, with the exception of the few brief periods in which Israel has existed as an insular sovereign political entity, in which Jewish people have had the power to openly privilege themselves as a dominant racial group at the expense of other groups. Whereas there was a period of several centuries wherein white people — conscious of their whiteness and the way it made them different/better than other people — had both the means and the willpower to travel around the world establishing states in which they were made the supreme/privileged race and others were treated as less-than as a result.
And even people who weren't white nationalists could look at that and say "motte and bailey".
He can claim that abolishing whiteness is a technical term that doesn't imply any racial hostility. But saying "I don't really mean X" when there are plenty of people in your coalition who do mean X is indistinguishable from giving them cover and encouraging them even if you pinky swear that that isn't really what you mean.
His argument is that the independence of US territories is unconstitutional because the Constitution denies some powers to the states and independence implies granting those powers, and because the Constitution applies to the states and making them independent denies the inhabitants their constitutional rights.
The former argument should fail because the Constitution actually says "state" and territories that are granted independence are not states. The latter argument wouldn't apply to the Phillippines because the inhabitants were not US citizens and not born in the US. He just handwaved away the Insular Cases and he claimed the inhabitants of the Phillippines were born in the US, which wasn't true.
Note that the argument isn't actually originalism.
Jiro
9d ago
The jobs feminine women perform don't care about three year resume gaps if there's a kid involved.
Wasn't one of the big complaints of feminism when it started that such jobs did care about the gap?
Jiro
10d ago
"Do not weakman in order to show how bad a group is."
You literally picked some random person from a group you don't like and told a shaggy dog story about her just so you can have a wall of text whose upshot is that this person and "people like" her are bad.
Jiro
11d ago
Minority outcomes have shifted very little in any positive directions.
I think "not being a slave" is pretty positive.
Jiro
11d ago
If you read my comment more carefully, you'd know the whole point was to contrast mainstream conservatives with the far-right, who I recognize as distinct groupings.
Then why do you claim that most of this site is far right?
Jiro
11d ago
Is it? Most people don't behave as if marriages are transactions (in a nontrivial sense). For that matter, they don't behave as if children are property. People who do treat marriages as transactions and children as property are frowned on and considered disturbed and even criminal. You can in some literal sense use those terms but that ignores the emotional attachments people have to spouses and children, which massively affects behavior.
Also, some of your conclusions don't seem to match the real world. The average woman in favor of abortion isn't more likely to be progressive because they have the least to offer other than sex and children. Being progressive is associated with having the most to offer--they're likely to have university degrees, journalist positions, etc. Housewifes are more likely to oppose abortion.
You also seem to think that the belief about whether fetuses count as people is for all practical purposes completely downstream from other considerations. But it's obvious in the real world that religious belief in the personhood of the fetuses is a huge source of opposition to abortion, not the effect of it.
Jiro
12d ago
That's low IQ by mistake theory. By conflict theory their IQ is fine, but they're being disingenuous in a way that doesn't make sense.
Jiro
12d ago
I'd think that if the movement has changed enough that the bad faith from 40 years ago isn't relevant, then people in the present-day movement who are acting in good faith would say "I admit that happened 40 years ago, but we no longer want to do that." If they don't say that, then either they are acting in bad faith today or they have to appease people in the movement who are acting in bad faith today.
Ideally they should also add "... and here's what we're doing to make sure it doesn't happen again". But they haven't even gotten to the first step of admitting that it's a concern.
Jiro
13d ago
Every time I read one of these pathetic tough guy screeds, my first thought is to laugh at the absolute lack of self-awareness. 'Reee, my outgroup is full of animals who would never compromise or act in good faith! This justifies me never acting in good faith either.
Cool. Tell me about some relevant instances of your outgroup acting in good faith.
Jiro
15d ago
Illegal immigrants can't vote, so the "importing voters" theory doesn't hold up so well
But they add to how much the votes of people around them count. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evenwel_v._Abbott
"50 Stalins" uses Stalin as metonymy. It isn't about actual Stalin, and the fact that people behave in a certain way in relation to Stalin (and have to to stay alive) doesn't make that what "50 Stalins" is about.
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